Bolsonaro vs the Press: a panorama of Brazil’s president attacks to public opinion
By Giovana Kebian
Left-wing movements and parties used to be against the editorial perspective of traditional Brazillian media vehicles, such as the huge Globo group. However, nowadays, things seem to has changed: the press has turned out one of the big enemies of Bolsonaro. This last week showed us that it hasn’t been any worse time to be a journalist in Brazil since the end of Military Dictatorship.
It’s not any big news that Bolsonaro isn’t a huge fan of the press. Firstly, his whole election campaign was based on not participating in any of the TV’s debates and, on the other hand, discharging fake news about his opponent through WhatsApp groups. Anyhow, lately, he has been publicly cleared his hatred to the press on some statements.
During an April 22nd meeting, that became public as it’s the biggest proof of the ex-Justice Minister Sergio Moro against the government, Bolsonaro claimed “Information systems: mine works. My private one works. The officials ones misinform: I’d rather not having information then being misinformed by the information system that I have. […] Go fuck yourselves, shit! How is it to be pursued all the time. Then, the fucking Folha de São Paulo (biggest Brazillian newspaper) tells that my brother was expelled from a butchery in Registro, that he was caught buying meat without using a mask.”
“I’d rather not having information then being misinformed by the information system that I have.”
More recently, Bolsonaro stated that the ones who believe in the press must suffer and that the WHO wants to broke Brazil’s economy, showing he’s not only against the press but more precisely against any official organism that proposes to inform the population. In other situation, he has, inclusive, threatened to impose sanctions to Globo’s group and ironically invited Roberto Marinho to Federal Superior Court (the original owner of the radio and TV consortium), forgetting the simple fact that he’d already dead.
This year, Bolsonaro’s hatred to the press got a higher level. He’s started not only to make pronouncements against Globo and the shit information system but also to put into practice his hate speech. As soon as the coronavirus crisis has started, media vehicles got the center of attention as they inform people of the correct procedures during each step of the pandemic. Nonetheless, during the beginning of the pandemic, he mocked out journalists and told them to go home as they were waiting for an interview outside of Planalto’s palace. After Sergio Moro had fired himself and accused Bolsonaro of trying to change Federal Police’s director, he told journalists to shut up and also called scoundrel the newspaper Folha de São Paulo. In another occasion, a group of journalists was attacked by demonstrators during the cover of Bolsonaro’s support protests.
“There is no more report in Jornal Nacional”
Another tactic of the government to make the journalists’ work a nightmare was to omit the numbers of coronavirus deaths. Yes, during a global pandemic, when Brazil has reached the top of the global ranking of countries with more deaths caused by the COVID-19 disease, the Health Minister’s started to publish only the confirmed deaths in the last 24 hours. In this very occasion he asserted “There is no more report in Jornal Nacional”, clearly referring to the main television news program in Brazil, as the coronavirus daily data would come public only at 22 hours and the Jornal Nacional goes before this time. Two curious things happened after this attack: Globo started to interrupt the programmation to spread the fresh coronavirus numbers actualized and it got even more repercussion. Another consequence was the emergence of a collision group formed by the main Brazillian vehicles — Folha, O Estado de S. Paulo, O Globo, G1, and Extra — to help them out with information about coronavirus numbers of deaths. The alliance was very praised, although the government had only retreated after a Federal Superial Court order to go back publishing data according to the old system.
In all these cases until now, we can watch Bolsonaro trying to challenge the press to accomplish her job: inform the population. And in a misinformation era, in which people get informed more often through WhatsApp rather than through professional papers, it’s so symptomatic that Brazil’s president reinforces media’s damaged discredibility. Furthermore, it’s clearly a case of disrespect with the Human Rights of information and freedom of speech. Bolsonaro’s custom of attacking the press is not only disadvantageous and problematic to the public but also the journalists. Attacks to journalists had suffered an increase of 54,07% from 2018 to 2019, according to the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj).
That’s the case of what happened to Patrícia Campos Mello, a Folha de São Paulo journalist who got several threats after published a report of how entrepreneurs spread a huge quantity of messages against Bolsonaro’s opponent party, PT, during the 2018 Presidential election through WhatsApp groups. Or also the case of William Bonner, Jornal Nacional’s anchor, whose son was recently a victim of fraud clearly made by Bolsonaro’s supporters.
“Whoever subscribed to my son’s name in this program belongs to a group, or had acted lonely, with no intention to take out the money. He made this so the son of Jornal Nacional’s anchor and Globo’s entertainment presenter showed as someone who made something very bad and then could trap these people.” — claimed Bonner in a recent interview.
Or even the attack that happened yesterday, when a man, armed with a knife, had invaded Rede Globo’s building, used a reporter, Marina Araújo, as a hostage while he tried to talk with Renata Vasconsellos, the other Jornal Nacional’s anchor.
This last case, more cinematographical, is maybe a caricature of how powerful and dangerous is the government’s spite to the press. When the Republic President states numerous times discrediting journalism and media vehicles he is indirectly supporting this kind of offensive, even if comes publicly rejecting the episode. It may seem like a terror movie scene, but actually, violence against journalists and current onslaughts were very common, however, differently from now, that time used to be called Military Dictatorship.
