Dei O, Dei O; or, Deus Dará

Sen. Suplicy “embarrasses” Alckmin at cathedral press conference; candidate leaves after only two questions. Alckmin TV programming last evening says “Lula tells lies in order to frighten people” about his privatization plans, caso eleito. The phrase “electoral terrorism” begins to circulate.

Alckmin’s candidacy for the presidency of Brazil gives me a pretext to return to a deep background issue that has interested me for some time now — a simmering debate over (1) the influence of Opus Dei in Brazilian conservative politics and (2) the influence of the University of Navarra in Spain — where my esteemed blogging colleague and major Hispanic blogging-industry influential Prof. Orihuela of eCuaderno teaches — on the profession of journalism in Brazil.

Here’s a recent sidebar on the subject from my extensive background reading that has a few factoids of sufficient interest to follow up on — chief among them that Geraldo Alckmin himself is a graduate of the media management course – whose curriculum bears no resemblance to any J-school course list you have ever seen – and that the director of the course is Alckmin’s Opus Dei spiritual advisor.

Alckmin shocked the hell out of my establishment-clause-conditioned gringo sensibilities yesterday by holding a press conference on electoral politics inside the cathedral of Our Lady of Aparecida — the Black Madonna who is the patron saint of Brazil — on her saint’s day.

It turned out to be an embarassment — the word used by several papers, by the way: constrangimento and constrangido — because Sen. Eduardo Suplicy — husband of former SP mayor Marta Suplicy and re-elected PT senator for the state — was also at the press conference and pointed out several, er, “misstatements” by Mr. Alckmin during the recent debate on TV Band.

Suplicy is an extremely interesting fellow –reelected to the Senate for the PT amid a general PSDB landslide in the state of São Paulo, he once lived in a favela for an entire legislative session.

Rumored to be too emotionally fragile and eccentric for national office. But with enough fortitude left in him to drive the moneychangers from the temple, apparently.

My own study of “freedom of the press” and “freedom of expression” NGOs and NGO-State Dept. partnerships shows a heavy participation by Catholic charities in such initiatives, as part of the “corporate works” quango strategy emerging among wealthy, rabidly anti-Communist sectors of the Catholic laity.

See for example my post RSF: GIFA or GOFA?

Which is what, among other data points, prompts my interest in the evolving institutional “ecosystem” — if we must torture that metaphor — of the new, “none of this liberation theology or social Gospels crap anathema, please” political Catholicism.

In an interview granted to Época magazine in January, professor and editorial consultant Carlos Alberto Di Franco, director of the Master em Jornalismo program for communications business administration revealed his affiliation with Opus Dei, an ultraconservative Catholic lay organization. Di Franco said he was a member of Opus Dei and the spiritual advisor to São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB).

The confession added more fuel to the fire of a debate that readers of Veja and this Observatório have been watching since the end of last year, between our own Alberto Dines and columnist Diogo Mainardi of the Editora Abril weekly. Dines warns of the growing influence of ideas and practices disseminated through Opus Dei on Brazilian newsroom; Mainardi believes that Brazilian journalism is thoroughly infiltrated with “Lulists” e “Dirceuists” in the service of the federal government.

Mainardi is one of the most egregious scumbags ever to call himself a journalist without observing a single basic tenet of the craft. Ever.

Alckmin’s pre-candidacy for the presidency certainly helped attract the media spotlight to the issue, but it is nothing new. On the contrary: Dines has long questioned the influence on the press of Opus Dei through the University of Navarra in Spain, with which the Master’s program in journalism maintains close relations. His first articles on the subject OI are from 1996, the Observatório’s first year on the Internet.

Or nearly the same vintage as the warnings of the editor in chief of this Observatório is Di Franco’s Master’s course, which began in 1997. Since then, according to the Web site of the course, nearly two hundred journalism professionals have graduated. Based on the profiles of 137 former students available on the Web site, it was possible to do some calculations and create a general profile of the program’s graduates. OI also attempted to contact all the ex-students by e-mail. Some 30 of these were incorrect or were returned for other reasons (mailbox full or notice of temporary absence). In the space of a week, 21 “masterianos” responded to a short questionnaire about the characteristics of the course, the results of which are presented here.

Master and Opus Dei: “A Christian Solution”

In the introductory page on the Master’s in Journalism on the Internet there is not a single reference to Opus Dei. On the contrary, the emphasis of the course seems quite “pragmatic.” “More and more, communications companies need the leaders of their editorial staff to have a wide-ranging vision that integrate efficient modern management practices, suitable for a hostile competitive environment, with the ideals of innovative, high-quality journalism with a social mission. [Ah, yes, but WHAT social mission, exactly? Can we choose our own social mission, or is there only room for one?  --Ed.] With a strong emphasis on management, including editorial management [what other kind of management besides editorial management does a manager of journalists need to learn to manage?] the Master’s in Journalism & Communications Business Management Program is a clear response to this demand,”, the site explains.

Only when the reader visits the site of the University Extension Center, the entity that oversees the program, will he learn of the association with Opus Dei. The page of the “University Chaplain,” linked from that site, makes a clear and transparent declaration of the relationship, as follows :

“The University Extension Center, in an effort to improve more than just the scientific and academic quality of its work, studies ways to deepen our understanding of the ethical aspects of the various disciplines. In this effort, it relies on the help of the Opus Dei lay organization, to which it entrusts the organization of Christian education and chaplain services for all who desire to participate.

Opus Dei is a personal lay organization of the Catholic Church whose mission is to promote, among faithful Christians of all walks of life, a life fully coherent with Christian faith under the current conditions of human life, and especially through the sanctification of work. Thus, it contributes to the evangelization of all social spheres, reminded persons that whatever profession they dedicate themselves to, they must contribute to a Christian solution to social problems.. The founder, São Josemaría Escrivá, was canonized by Pope John Paul II, on Oct. 6, 2002, in Saint Peter’s Square in Rome.”

Results of the survey

While the parent organization of the program makes its affiliation clear, however, former students are unanimous in denying that the course is doctrinaire in any way. The 21 alumni who responded to the OI survey all say that their coursework was exclusively dedicated to technical and managerial aspects of the editorial profession, although some did admit that they noticed, or were explicitly told of, their professors’ ties to Opus Dei.

“On the first day of the course, Prof. Carlos Alberto Di Franco gave a ‘tour’ of the school’s facilities. And he took us to the chapel, making it clear that we were all welcome to attend services if we wished. But nothing more than that,” wrote one of the former students. “In the first unit of the course, in one of the first class meetings, Prof. Di Franco spoke about Opus Dei and the course’s ties to the Univ. of Navarra, in Spain. He invited questions, gave us the URL of the order’s Web site, and so on. Nothing mysterious, very transparent and done in a highly ethical manner. The subject was confined to conversations in the corridor with fellow students who chose to participate. I do not recall whether, over the course of the year, the subject of Opus Dei ever came up again in a class session. I think it is rather naive to believe that editors like us, with 29 years of experience, could have been indoctrinated or influenced by Opus Dei”, writes an editor in chief who took the course.

On another question posed by the OI survey, the former students were more divided. Asked whether their degree from the Master’s program opened doors for them professionally, 71.4% said no and 28.5% said that the course helped them get new jobs or promotions at their old jobs. One former student justified his response by denying that Opus Dei had anything to do with that fact : “Contact with editors from all over Brazil tends to open doors for you, in the medium to long term. That’s natural, and has nothing to do with the fact that the program is run by Opus Dei members. It would incredible to think that we spent the entire year debating journalism with colleagues in executive positions without that yield some job leads”, explained one survey participant. Another participant, however, says that some news organizations do take participation in the Master’s into account when hiring: “The newspaper I work at, for example, had access to my Master’s transcripts”, he wrote.

The third question in the survey asked about the students’ relationship with the course — whether they had signed up on their own initiative or at the suggestion of their employer. Most of the respondents – 47% – enrolled in the course at the insistence of their employer. Not all said so explicitly, but many said that their employer paid the tuition –- on the Masters official Web site, the price of the course is given as R$18,000 per year, with a discount of 10% for firms that send more than one student. In addition to that 47% , 14% said their participation came about both at the instigation of their employer and a personal interest in the course, which makes a majority of the respondents (61%). Only 19% of the respondents said they took the course on their own initiative. The rest — another 19% -– said they had enrolled on the recommendation, without specifying who paid for the course.

Statistics

Based on the data on the program’s Web page, it is possible to create a profile of students who take the course.

Most (36%) are from São Paulo, which makes sense, given that the course is given in the capital city of the state. What’s notable, however, is the percentage of students from the southern region of Brazil – 10,9% from Paraná; 10,2%, from Rio Grande do Sul; and 3,65% de Santa Catarina. Only 2,9% were from Rio de Janeiro -– fewer than the number of students from Goiás, Espírito Santo and Bahia, and the southern states mentioned above. In the table below we present the percentages of students by state of origin.

[Table omitted]

When these data are compared with information on where the student worked when he or she took the course, it turns out that most worked for the Grupo Estado, as the table below shows. 9 journalists from the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper, along with 4 from the Agência Estado news agency, gives us 13 Master’s alumni from the comnpany – two more than the 11 free lancers that make up the second-largest group.

It makes sense: Prof. Carlos Alberto Di Franco is a columnist for the Estadão, which supports the Master’s by sending several of its journalists to take the course each year. Editora Abril has 9 graduates, tying it with the Estadão and the Gazeta do Povo of Paraná, a newspaper that is being sued by governor Roberto Requião (PMDB) for allegedly publishing lies about his administration.

Zero Hora from Rio Grande do Sul has sent 7 professionals to the curse, and A Tarde in Bahia and O Popular of Goiás have sent five each. It is striking that the Folha de S.Paulo, the largest newspaper in the nation, has never sent at student, while the state government of São Paulo, during Alckmin’s administration, sent its Secretary of Communications to take a course designed for newspaper editors. Coincidence or not, Geraldo Alckmin himself appears on the Web site as a graduate of the course.

[Table omitted]

The table below, finally, sorts the graduates by job title. The largest group – 33 of 137 students studied, worked as editors at the time they took the course. There were also many senior editorial managers from major newspapers. 39 of the students were editors in chief or executive editors, along with 9 publishers. In contrast, only 7 rank and file reporters have taken the course since it began in 1997.

[Table omitted]

Content managers only, apparently, and responding to a higher law than the Humean epistemology of information quality assurance practiced by the traditional “reality-based community.”