There was a time when Folha intended to be Folhão. In addition to the change in gender, a massive advertising campaign tried to force the increase that had always been the prerogative of its main rival in São Paulo, the Estadão. The idea was to show in the name that Folha was the largest newspaper in the country. Times of fascicles, historical filming and a lot of paper.
Decades and a digital revolution later, Folha continues to be Folha, and Estadão, Estadão. The first claimed to be a national leader, a title now contested by O Globo, the second named himself a leader in the capital of São Paulo. Folhão, for some years, remained as the nickname of a bar that was open until dawn in front of the newspaper building.
Since last Sunday (17), however, it is possible to revive the slogan with both printed newspapers in hand: Folha, in standard format, Folhão and the Estadão has become more like an Estadinho, a much smaller newspaper. Joking aside, it's the Estado de São Paulo but with 30% less pages.
The competitor's product is not a tabloid; this, equivalent to half the standard, is the format that Folha uses in some specials and advertising supplements. The rival's option is the so-called Berliner, which has a smaller page, but maintains the proportions of the conventional newspaper. It's been a step taken long ago by diaries in Europe and the US, an elegant way to cut paper and costs.
The newspaper was light. "For the first time, it's lighter and clearer than Folha. It's something remarkable," says Marcio Freitas, responsible for the art direction of Folha's latest graphic reforms on the website and in print. "It's comfortable to read, but this lightness takes away the sobriety of the news, which is very curious when it comes to a diary that has always been more serious."
Márcio talks about the visual aspect, but his sentence fits like a glove in the Thursday edition (21), when the press had the obligation to make the historical record of the Senate Covid Inquiry final report. Estado submitted a page and a half of text, or something equivalent to a standard page. Folha brought this six times, including a great infographic. A big inversion for a generation that remembers a heavy Estadão, when it lived up to its name, with giant classifieds and several notebooks.
Does it make sense to invest in a product that is languishing around the world in the face of increasingly pulverized electronic media, which splashes news on cell phone screens, elevators and refrigerators? Estadão says yes by renewing the printed newspaper for its most important group of subscribers. At Folha, readers and readers have been seeking the ombudsman for months to complain about discontinued print subscriptions in various regions of the country – the newspaper blames the pandemic, but says that only 4% of all subscribers were impacted. The contingent is still considerable: 55 thousand copies printed in an average daily circulation of almost 360 thousand, according to the Editorial Department.
Everything indicates that it is a race of swans, fighting for who releases the most beautiful song before perishing, but there are those who still insist on swimming against the current.
The most recent example was given by Britain's The Guardian, which a month ago launched a weekly magazine, Saturday, with more than a hundred pages and a lot to read, from Nobel Prize interviews to trivia like playlists by famous people. The first issue had Greta Thumberg on the cover, a liquid like oil running down her head.
The newspaper already offered a printed weekly, The Guardian Weekly, which features selected news and articles from the week and crossword puzzles. Leftover paper? Far from it. The Guardian's daily edition was once standard, it was once a Berliner, its best project, and a few years ago, when outsourcing printing to cut costs, it became a tabloid.
Good newspaper is good on any size or platform.
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
Readers write to the ombudsman to inquire about Sueli Carneiro's departure from Folha's renewed editorial board even before the group's first meeting, earlier this month. In the report of the meeting, published on Oct. 6, a succinct last paragraph informs us that the writer, philosopher and anti-racism activist left the council the same day, at her request.
The obvious question is whether the output has to do with the controversy surrounding Leandro Narloch's column, the subject of this column three weeks ago. I asked if the Editorial Department would like to give more details of what happened. The answer was that there would be nothing to add to what was said in the article, that changes are common and that the council, since its creation in 1978, has already had 34 different formations; two modifications on the latest team.
As Andre Degenszajn, from the Ibirapitanga Institute, wrote in an article in Tendências / Debates, "Folha's institutional silence is a position and has consequences."
José Henrique Mariante
Trained as an engineer and journalist, Mariante has been a reporter, correspondent, editor and editorial secretary at Folha, where he has worked since 1991. He is the ombudsman.
Translated by Kiratiana Freelon