Backs Turned to the Numbers

12/19/2016 - 20h45

Between the 7th and 8th of December, Datafolha went to the streets to hear from voters regarding for whom they were planning to vote for President.

After nearly 3000 interviews, the institution consolidated the data and sent a report to Folha's newsroom with the principal conclusions of the electoral research.

"Former President Lula (PT) has widened his lead in the first round of the 2008 Presidential race, and under scenarios for the second round, he only gets defeated by Marina Silva (Rede). The PT leader, however, also has the highest rejection level of the names tested, now neck-and-neck with current President Michel Temer (PMDB), whose level of rejection has increased more than 10 points since July."

It's up to the newsroom to deal with the information that they receive from the Datafolha in journalistic fashion and to decide when, how and how much to publish.

The research was presented to readers in the following manner in the edition of December 12. "Marina leads in the 2nd round under all scenarios", announced the headline on the front page.

The subtitle continued: "Lula increases in the first round compared to research from July, but continues with high levels of rejection, according to Datafolha".

In the edition closed at 9:26 PM the title on the page read: "Marina leads in 2018 Presidential race". In the edition finalized at 12:18 AM (midnight), the title was changed to "Marina leads in the 2nd round of the 2018 race".

As is easy to see, the emphasis given by the newsroom was tortured and even incorrect in the title reproduced above - and hadn't yet been corrected by the newsroom by the close of the writing of this column.

In an internal critique, I pointed out that in the same amount of space given to Folha's headline it would have been possible to provide more precise and complete information: that Lula was ahead in the research for the first round, but Marina was ahead in the simulations for the second round.

Beyond that, in a graphic published on the newspaper's front page showing the level of rejection for all of the names presented, Lula's name was listed in first place with 44%, while Michel Temer's, the name with precisely the highest level of rejection, at 45%, was omitted.

Folha's editorial decisions have led to a lot of criticism from readers, who accuse the newspaper of manipulation.

"It's a tribute to disinformation, which damages the paper's reputation among its readers!", declared reader Luiz Abrahão.

"Wouldn't it be more dignified to present both winners on the front page?", suggested reader Lucília Magalhães Oliveira.

In my opinion, in addition to erring in the edition presenting the Datafolha research, the newspaper missed the chance of transforming the results of the research into a relevant and profound agenda: to try to explain how and why Lula managed a better performance than in the previous research even though he has been practically the daily target of negative news reporting.

In general terms, the former president improved his numbers in all segments of the population. Marina still leads in the scenarios where her name is included in the second round, but Lula has decreased that lead.

Not as bad was that five months after failing to publish part of Datafolha's research showing that a majority of Brazilians were in favor of both Dilma and Temer resigning and the calling of new direct elections, the newspaper highlighted that 63% of Brazilians are in favor of Temer's resignation, followed by a new contest.

Many readers also questioned the validity of electoral research being carried out two years in advance of when the election is actually to be held.

Opinion research is a Folha tradition carried out with the important objective of understanding voter behavior, even with such long lead times and with the potential for changes in the political-electoral scenario.

Leave it to columnist Elio Gaspari to provide a clear synthesis of the research and its importance. "Opinion research in 2016 about an election which is set for 2018 is worth little more than a horoscope, but the signal coming from Datafolha is clear: The path for 'everybody else' will be rocky. Marina Silva continues to lead in the second round, against Lula, Geraldo Alckmin, Aécio Neves and José Serra. Lula loses only to her. As he himself says, 'The pit-viper is alive' ".

Roberto Dias,managing editor, defended the newspaper's choice.

"The Brazilian presidential election is held in two rounds, except in the case where one candidate gets 50% + 1 votes in the first round - something that can't be pictured, even remotely, under any scenario tested until now and that hasn't happened in this country for two decades. But it is wrong to think that they newspaper hid the results for the first round. They are published, in fact, at the top of the front page in the print edition" he declared.

Dias says that the data regarding Temer's level of rejection was omitted because it was "journalistically less relevant".

I think that the arguments both about rejection and about the prevalence in the second round are weak.

It is also worth noting the minimal attention given by the paper to the research evaluating the National Congress: 58% of the population considers the performance of congressmen and senators to be poor or terrible - the highest level of rejection ever recorded by Datafolha.

With the legislature in the limelight, it was covered in Tuesday's edition (the 13th), discretely and without further analysis.

Folha was the first newspaper to invest in opinion research and treats it with technical and methodological respect. It is time for the newspaper to make peace with the numbers.

In times of political passion and irrationality, anchoring with journalistic tools like objectivity, impartiality and lack of bias becomes even more critical for precise reporting. Because passion has already taken over the social networks for free.

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

Read the article in the original language