By Sebastián Lacunza
Editor-in-Chief
Editor-in-Chief
Workers’ party holds problematic coexistence with media that turns explosive before elections
A cyclical stage reappears in Brazilian politics. While it is in power, the Workers’ Party has a problematic coexistence with mainstream media. Unable to put into place antitrust legislation as they had less than a fifth of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, both Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff have since 2003 paired gestures towardsthe Marinho family, the owner of Globo Group, with complaints about “fierce persecution from the Conservative press” and a draft of reform of the media sector.
What seems to be a damage-limitation enmity has frequently turns into high-voltage hostility as presidential elections near. It happened in 2010 before Dilma Rousseff’s first victory and it has reared its head again ahead of today’s vote.
Samuel Lima, professor of Communication at the University of Brasilia and researcher at the Centre for Journalism Ethics at the University of Santa Catarina, answers from Brazil: “the behaviour of the mainstream media was similar to that of a political party in terms of systematic opposition to public policies for the last twelve years.”
For a giant country like Brazil, the multimedia portfolio is not extensive. The media landscape is led by three newspapers-of-record between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (O Globo, O Estado and Folha de S. Paulo), the omnipresent TV Globo, the news magazine Veja and a greater diversity in pay TV, internet and telephony than on the Argentine market.
Lima continues: “the governments of Lula (2003 - 2010) and Dilma (2010 - 2014) chose not to confront the commercial monopoly media, however they have politically and financially supported the National Communication Conference, held in 2009, without having pursued the 633 proposals approved there.”
The analyst referred to a 2009 conference which involved political activists, trade unions, university researchers and social organizations and prompted a drastic change in the face of the Brazilian media market, historically shaped by a strong private-sector slate and scant state presence.
A year after the said conference, the last one during the founder of PT’s second term, the Third National Programme for Human Rights was released. On the chapter on communications, it set forward similar principles to those found in the then recently enacted Argentine media law. The initiative — in the middle of a campaign — shook the sector like an atomic bomb. Traditional media sent a clear message: Lula intends to “liquidate the rule of law and install an authoritarian regime in Brazil” (O Estado editorial); “be warned that attempts to control the press will be repudiated and any government that tries to do it will be trespassing constitutional clauses” (Folha de São Paulo in an open letter to Lula and Dilma); “this strain comes from the convictions of those still mulling over the idea of totalitarian Leninism” (Veja).
Finally, the apocalypse did not come to pass and the episode ended with Dilma visiting the now-deceased owner of the Globo empire, Lily Marinho, at her home, to celebrate “Mrs. D, the great lady of Brazilian democracy.”
A full Rousseff term is about to finish and a debate of this nature had not appeared until a few days ago, when the president dusted off those 2009 and 2010 conclusions.
“Brazil has to look into this problem, which has not yet been resolved. The media needs to be controlled in the same way as the ports and the oil industry,” Rousseff said. “The Constitution is very clear when it states that it does not permit monopolies. So in any sector where there is a concentration of ownership there needs to be changes,” she added. The Brazilian president was quick to make clear that any regulation would not involve media content.
Does it mean an opportunistic attempt to stir a hornet’s nest during the campaign again? “It is critical to know who will be appointed to the Ministry of Communications if Dilma is re-elected. The current minister, Paulo Bernardo, is a hostage of big business media. He has the habit of granting exclusive interviews to Veja, Folha and O Estado generally defending retrograde positions and singing their tune. Those appointed earlier by Lula were the same or a little worse, including a former TV Globo reporter, Hélio Costa.”
“If a new media law is issued, Dilma will have popular support. The campaign for democratization and regulation is quite mature in the field of social movements, but we must assume a furious reaction against from the industry and its spokespersons,” the professor said from Santa Catarina.
Lima compares Globo with the Argentine media group Clarín. “The Globo organizations is to Brazil what Clarín is for Argentina. They are groups running an undemocratic leadership, exclusionary and monopolistic matrix. Any democratic progress in the Mercosur is seen as ‘populist’ and ‘backward’.”
However, the professor warns about changes in consumption patterns, which reinforce market dominance in some cases but can alter them in others.
Lima cites the official IBGE PNAD 2013 survey, which marked that only 50.1% of Brazilian households are connected to the Internet — a segment which is sure to grow—, and points out that traditional broadcast TV, “especially Globo,” is losing audiences and, with it, “its power to shape public opinion.”
@sebalacunza
A cyclical stage reappears in Brazilian politics. While it is in power, the Workers’ Party has a problematic coexistence with mainstream media. Unable to put into place antitrust legislation as they had less than a fifth of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, both Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff have since 2003 paired gestures towardsthe Marinho family, the owner of Globo Group, with complaints about “fierce persecution from the Conservative press” and a draft of reform of the media sector.
What seems to be a damage-limitation enmity has frequently turns into high-voltage hostility as presidential elections near. It happened in 2010 before Dilma Rousseff’s first victory and it has reared its head again ahead of today’s vote.
Samuel Lima, professor of Communication at the University of Brasilia and researcher at the Centre for Journalism Ethics at the University of Santa Catarina, answers from Brazil: “the behaviour of the mainstream media was similar to that of a political party in terms of systematic opposition to public policies for the last twelve years.”
For a giant country like Brazil, the multimedia portfolio is not extensive. The media landscape is led by three newspapers-of-record between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo (O Globo, O Estado and Folha de S. Paulo), the omnipresent TV Globo, the news magazine Veja and a greater diversity in pay TV, internet and telephony than on the Argentine market.
Lima continues: “the governments of Lula (2003 - 2010) and Dilma (2010 - 2014) chose not to confront the commercial monopoly media, however they have politically and financially supported the National Communication Conference, held in 2009, without having pursued the 633 proposals approved there.”
The analyst referred to a 2009 conference which involved political activists, trade unions, university researchers and social organizations and prompted a drastic change in the face of the Brazilian media market, historically shaped by a strong private-sector slate and scant state presence.
A year after the said conference, the last one during the founder of PT’s second term, the Third National Programme for Human Rights was released. On the chapter on communications, it set forward similar principles to those found in the then recently enacted Argentine media law. The initiative — in the middle of a campaign — shook the sector like an atomic bomb. Traditional media sent a clear message: Lula intends to “liquidate the rule of law and install an authoritarian regime in Brazil” (O Estado editorial); “be warned that attempts to control the press will be repudiated and any government that tries to do it will be trespassing constitutional clauses” (Folha de São Paulo in an open letter to Lula and Dilma); “this strain comes from the convictions of those still mulling over the idea of totalitarian Leninism” (Veja).
Finally, the apocalypse did not come to pass and the episode ended with Dilma visiting the now-deceased owner of the Globo empire, Lily Marinho, at her home, to celebrate “Mrs. D, the great lady of Brazilian democracy.”
A full Rousseff term is about to finish and a debate of this nature had not appeared until a few days ago, when the president dusted off those 2009 and 2010 conclusions.
“Brazil has to look into this problem, which has not yet been resolved. The media needs to be controlled in the same way as the ports and the oil industry,” Rousseff said. “The Constitution is very clear when it states that it does not permit monopolies. So in any sector where there is a concentration of ownership there needs to be changes,” she added. The Brazilian president was quick to make clear that any regulation would not involve media content.
Does it mean an opportunistic attempt to stir a hornet’s nest during the campaign again? “It is critical to know who will be appointed to the Ministry of Communications if Dilma is re-elected. The current minister, Paulo Bernardo, is a hostage of big business media. He has the habit of granting exclusive interviews to Veja, Folha and O Estado generally defending retrograde positions and singing their tune. Those appointed earlier by Lula were the same or a little worse, including a former TV Globo reporter, Hélio Costa.”
“If a new media law is issued, Dilma will have popular support. The campaign for democratization and regulation is quite mature in the field of social movements, but we must assume a furious reaction against from the industry and its spokespersons,” the professor said from Santa Catarina.
Lima compares Globo with the Argentine media group Clarín. “The Globo organizations is to Brazil what Clarín is for Argentina. They are groups running an undemocratic leadership, exclusionary and monopolistic matrix. Any democratic progress in the Mercosur is seen as ‘populist’ and ‘backward’.”
However, the professor warns about changes in consumption patterns, which reinforce market dominance in some cases but can alter them in others.
Lima cites the official IBGE PNAD 2013 survey, which marked that only 50.1% of Brazilian households are connected to the Internet — a segment which is sure to grow—, and points out that traditional broadcast TV, “especially Globo,” is losing audiences and, with it, “its power to shape public opinion.”
@sebalacunza