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Lukewarm Picture of a Burning Theme

12/06/2016 - 00h49

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PAULA CESARINO COSTA

The warning sign had been given in the afternoon on Wednesday, the 30th.

With the country in a state of shock from the airplane crash in Colombia that caused the death of 71 people, among them Chapecoense team players and journalists, the Congress was able to work in the shadows to approve measures that are, to say the least, polemic and controversial.

The target was the anti-corruption package, a bill introduced with the significant support of 2 million voters.

With all of its strengths and weaknesses, it was smothered in the House of Congress in the early morning in which the country declared mourning.

In Thursday's edition (the 1st), Folha hid the crisis on its front page in a discrete headline, prioritizing the subsequent attempt by the president of the Senate to vote for urgent passage of the text approved by the Congress.

The primary story featured, obviously relevant, was this one: "Prolonged recession in Brazil increases pessimism regarding 2017", reporting on the 0,8% reduction in GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Aptly, the newspapers "O Globo" ("House provokes strong reaction in disfiguring anti-corruption package") and "O Estado de S. Paulo" ("Taskforce threatens to abandon Lava Jato [Car Wash] Investigation; tension between powers rises") published strong headlines with ample coverage, without taking cover in the weak GDP numbers.

The Rio de Janeiro paper even published three full pages with infographics showing the position of the congressmen in relation to each of the points being voted - the type of initiative that Folha readers have complained about and requested from the Ombudsman.

The newspaper treated the changes to the package like phlegm, while readers, on the other hand, were indignant.

There were 'pots-and-pans' manifestations in many state capitals throughout the country the night after the voting and calls went out for a new round of public protests to begin.

One reader complained that the newspaper alienated everyone with coverage of what has come to be referred to as the "Dawn of Infamy".

He pointed out that the "high-octane institutional crisis" that the country is passing through hasn't been reflected in its pages.

The order of the facts needs to be revisited in context in order to explain the technical difficulties of the reporting.

Around 9 pm on November 29th, the House of Congress approved the basic text of the package of anti-corruption measures put together by the Federal Prosecutor's Office.

Since its submission, the project had been the focus of a great deal of discussion. Pressure had been causing a lot of back and forth by the special commission that was charged with analyzing it.

A report published at 12:13 (midnight) on Folha's site had already cautioned that the approval, while practically unanimous, might not really signify anything.

"There were 450 votes for and only one against. Despite the scoreboard, there are still amendments pending for voting in the late night and into the early morning on Wednesday (the 30th) that could completely change the text."

The voting on the amendments was over at 4:19 AM on Wednesday. The project had been disfigured. Only one of the original ten proposals had been maintained intact. This part of the story was barely told in the print edition of the newspaper.

According to the point-of-view of the managing editor Vinicius Mota this editorial choice was justified, "on the day that we received confirmation that the worst recession in the country's modern history was going to drag on longer than initially expected, and maybe for another year longer".

For him, "if the maneuver attempted by the president of the Senate Renan Calheiros, to immediately approve the text sent over by the Congress had prevailed, this would have indeed merited a headline. The maneuver was, however, defeated by a solid majority, which made the subject appropriate to a longer process of debate and dealing with it".

In inside pages, the "Politics" section provided ample space but failed to detail the early morning voting specifics, and didn't provide behind the scenes information regarding political forces nor present any interpretation of what had taken place, neither did it detail how each congressman had actually voted.

The newspaper published opinion pieces when it should have prioritized and provided a specialized analysis.

For the editor of the "Politics" section, Fábio Zanini, it didn't make any sense to give a lot of space in the print edition on Thursday for something that happened on Wednesday night, more than 24 hours before the printed copy would reach the hands of the reader.

"To detail in the print edition how each congressman voted would take up a lot of space, but I agree that this could have been done in the digital edition. An analytical article would have been ideal, but two opinion pieces, one in favor of and the other against, have a similar effect", he reasoned.

The editor views the relationship between the digital and print editions as complementary, something that not all readers agree with, beyond the risk of fragmentation hindering the overall view of the process and the resulting consequences as a whole.

The end result was that Folha offered a lukewarm and incomplete picture of a burning theme.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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