"The devil's aversion to holy water is a light matter compared with a despot's dread of a newspaper that laughs."
"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work."
"No high-minded man, no man of right feeling, can contemplate the lumbering and slovenly lying of the present day without grieving to see a noble art so prostituted."
Latin American Zeitgeist consultant emeritus
"Eu sou o rei dessa folia, pra delírio da Fiel"
Roberto Civita: Infotainment Outlaw
For jaw-droppingly arrogant and extreme violations of minimal standards of journalistic integrity, this blog no longer spends a tostão on any Grupo Abril or associated (Disney) infotainment products.
(L) 2005 Libre Commons Res Communes License. This log of my open-source wetware-Internet interface design work is outside of all legal jurisdiction and takes its force and action from the constituent radical democratic practices of the global multitude against the logic of capital. Void where prohibited by a little man with a gun in his hand.
I showed you the Brazilian TV program “Rights of Response” recently, which Rede-TV agreed to air in order to settle a public-interest civil suit over sleazy programming. But how sleazy was it? Or was this, as Diogo Mainardi insists, merely a pretext for tightening state control over the John Galt-inspired noble, free and open market for nonexistent factoids (The Six Families archipelago of cartels, with concessions handed out as political party favors)? So I also wanted to show you the show that the Brazilian federal public advocate sued over racism, violence, and general nastiness: what Brazilians refer to as baixarias. I could not find any of the really nasty stuff I have read about, but this is nasty enough.
Socking it to Vladimir: “Our editorial line has been clean and consistent,” insists Mohme Seminário. And Bill Keller thought his paper faced critical reputational risk.
Diario La República (Peru): The Lima daily continues to defend itself against the charge that Vladimir Montesinos — the Fujimori spy chief who bribed newspapers and broadcasters to support the government in their news reporting — “owned” its editorial line after the death of its publisher.
Gustavo Mohme Seminario. Cargo. Director del diario La República, presidente del Consejo de la Prensa Peruana, y directivo de la Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa.
En entrevista, en el programa radial Al Día con César Hildebrandt, el director de La República, Gustavo Mohme Seminario, respondió a las afirmaciones lanzadas en el audio de la infamia por el corrupto Vladimiro Montesinos. Beto Ortiz pretendió a partir de ahí poner en duda la línea editorial de este diario que ha sido, es y será siempre un referente en la lucha contra la dictadura del extraditable Alberto Fujimori. A continuación transcribimos parte del diálogo. La entrevista completa leerla en la página web de La República.
In an interview with César Hildebrandt on the radio program Al Día, the publisher of La República, Gustavo Mohme Seminario, responded to the statements thrown out on the audio recording of slanderous charges made by the corrupt Vladimiro Montesinos. Beto Ortiz has been trying since then to cast doubt on the editorial line of this newspaper, which has been, is now and always will be a beacon in the struggle against the extraditable Alberto Fujimori. Below we transcribe part of the interview, which can be read in its entirety on our Web site.
Above: Felipe Calderón of PAN receives crucial support from Brozo the Televisa ambush interview clown. Note Calderón’s trademark “Mussolini fist pump” gesture. Source: YouTube. In terms of journalistic integrity, Brozo was recently exposed to disciplinary proceedings by a Mexican broadcast regulator — even as Televisa was found to have failed to live up to its statutory obligations to disclose information about its campaign advertising sales.Are some bets now off?
El Financiero reports: The Mexican Supreme Court struck down a provision of the so-called Televisa Law that proposed making renewal of public spectrum concessions automatic.
That is correct: The Televisa Law, passed not long before the election campaign, proposed making it impossible for Mexican elected officials to pull a Chávez on Televisa and TV Azteca.
México, 31 de mayo.- La Suprema Corte de Justicia de la Nación (SCJN) invalidó la renovación en automático de las concesiones de Radio y Televisión sin necesidad de licitación, como lo disponían las reformas hechas a las llamadas “leyes de medios”.
Mexico’s Supreme Court invalidate the automatic renewal of radio and TV concessions without an application process, a provided in the so-called “media laws.”
El Diario/LA PRENSA OnLine (New York City): I saw this on the cover of the Spanish-language daily down at the bodega across the street here in Brooklyn — Jamaican toasting and Juan Luis Guerra duel for control of the sound system as Juan makes me my customary ham egg ‘n’ cheese on a toasted bagel — but had difficulty finding it on the Web site.
Headline: “The new moralists of Latin America.”
NUEVA YORK — El presidente de Ecuador, Rafael Correa, criticó el concurso Miss Universo al señalar que los certámenes de belleza fomentan los “antivalores” e instó a las mujeres a “reclamar” por la utilización del cuerpo en las exhibiciones de esos eventos.
The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, criticized the Miss Universe pageant, saying that beauty pageants promote “antivalues” and called on women to “complain” over the exploitation of the female body in exhibitions at such events.
The chief moralizing socialist in Brazil, by the way, is probably PT dissident Heloisa Helena of the PSOL, who polled some 9% of the vote in the last election.
My mother-in-law voted for the no-makeup, T-shirt-and-jeans Alagoan finger-wagger, who does have a certain charm, I find — and a certain fondness for agitprop I find a little unsettling, I should also say.
A PSOL YouTuber, whose channel I subscribe to, happens to be one of the most diligent collectors of Netroots videotorial on this theme that I know of.
El mandatario latinoamericano se expresó así en su programa radial del sábado 26 de mayo, en la antesala de una agitada semana marcada por temas aparentemente tan disímiles como Miss Universo y el cierre de la estación privada de televisión Radio Caracas Televisión, (RCTV), por parte del presidente venezolano, Hugo Chávez, y su reemplazo por un canal estatal llamado Televisora Venezolana Social (TVes) con programación que incluye documentales sobre el Ché Guevara, especiales sobre viajes a La Habana y espacios que enseñarán cómo cocinar con productos indígenas y autóctonos como insectos.
The Latin American chief executive expressed this view on his May 26 radio program, anticipating a hectic week that featured such apparently dissimilar contoversies as the Miss Universe pageant and the closing of RCTV by Hugo Chávez, which has been replaced by TVes (Venezuelan Social Broadcasting), with programming that includes documentaries on Che Guevara, specials on travel to Havana and programs on how to cook with indigenous ingredients such as insects.
Insects? How revolting!
RCTV was not closed, by the way.
It can continue to broadcast on cable and satellite — DirecTV, if I am not mistaken — but not on the open airwaves.
La polémica decisión de Chávez de poner fin de las transmisiones del canal más antiguo de su país ha ocupado los titulares de prensa en los últimos días y ha despertado apoyos y críticas a nivel mundial
The controversial decision to end transmissions by the oldest channel in the country has made headlines in recent days and awakened both support and criticisms around the world.
As Chairman “Family Values” Murdoch takes control of his million-megawatt megaphone, does Fox even bother to trot out the pro forma disclosure that standards and practices demand: that Fox News is a subsidiary of News Corp? At about 06:00 or 06:15, Cavuto says in passing, “I should disclose that I am working on setting up a business channel for you.”
Brian Rogers, the chairman and chief investment officer of T. Rowe Price, told the Financial Times: “There might be other buyers more palatable to them. But who’s to say Rupert Murdoch is all that bad?
This Wall $t Journal subscriber — I use the editorial pages and the output of the Latin American desk to line the cat box — for one.
“The offer to purchase Dow Jones at $60 in our view represents a fairly attractive transaction price…I find it hard to believe the company itself has a plan to get the shares to $60,” he said. The offer represented a 67 per cent premium.
En la lista figuran periodistas como Natalia Springer, Claudia Gurisatti, Lina Maria Correa, Julio Sánchez Cristo, Lewis Acuña y Ricardo Calderón, reveló el Fiscal Mario Iguarán.
Included on the list are journalists such as Natalia Springer, Claudia Gurisatti, Lina Maria Correa, Julio Sánchez Cristo, Lewis Acuña and Ricardo Calderón, revealed magistrate Mario Iguarán.
El Fiscal confirmó hoy que la Policía Nacional entregó una carpeta electrónica en la que aparecen registradas los 94 nombres de los interceptados.
The Fiscal confirmed today that the National Police has turned in an electronic file in which the names of 94 intercept targets are listed.
The NMMist, carrying a torch, visits Globo’s G1 news portal inside Second Life. No one home, perhaps because heaven is a place where nothing every happens. Some guy is yelling, “Hey, who wants a job?” Why bother? I am immortal and have found a source for free military-grade assault weapons The NMMist has recently morphed into a heavily armed, naked, bearded circus fat lady. Carrying a torch.
Recentes dados sobre o Second Life revelam que ele não é assim nenhuma Brastemp virtual. Atualmente, o game (dizem que não é um game, mas é) tem cerca de 6,2 milhões de internautas registrados.
Recent data on Second Life reveals that it is not exactly a virtual Brastemp [retailer on the same scale as, say, Wal-Mart]. Currently, the game (they say it’s not a game, but it is) has nearly 6.2 million Internauts registered.
Só que nos últimos 60 dias, somente 1,5 milhão deles passaram por lá, assim mesmo por poucos minutos.
But in the last 60 days, only 1.5 million of them have visited the virtual realm, even if for only a few minutes.
Eu mesmo estive fuçando suas atrações neste último fim de semana. Fui até à loja da Dell, na tentativa de configurar e comprar um novo PC.
I myself was sniffing around its attractions last weekend. I went to the Dell shop in an attempt to configure and buy a new PC.
Não foi difícil achar o local. Quase impossível foi criar a configuração do computador que eu queria.
It was not hard to find the place. What was nearly impossible to do was to configure the computer I wanted.
Trata-se de uma tarefa complicadíssima, só mesmo para experts em ferramentas de 3D. Devo ter feito alguma grande besteira porque me baniram de lá.
It is an extremely complicated task, for experts in 3D tools only. I must have done something incredibly stupid because they wound up banning me from the place.
Bem, o que realmente acontece é que o Second Life está sendo endeusado pela grande mídia e se transformando em uma ferramenta para especuladores e vendedores de realidades virtuais fazerem fortunas.
Look, what is really happening is that Second Life is being deified by the major media and turning into a tool making lots of money for speculators and virtual reality pitchmen. Read the rest of this entry »
Has Brazil’s federal police really evolved from airplane to starship? The Estado de S. Paulo invites us down the rabbit hole for a look at the men, the myths and the murky madness.
The lede gets buried in a lot of mumbo-jumbo here, but it boils down to this: A federal judge says that Operation Straight Razor was born as an investigation into crimes by federal police, but that high-ranking PF officials stifled those investigations.
The judge does not name names.
The Estadão does not seek reaction from the police agencies mentioned or evaluate recent, public and notorious cases in which the PF has arrested its own agents for tipping off criminals.
Angêlica Santa Cruz of the conservative daily invokes the films of Martin Scorsese to describe massive maracutaias uncovered during a federal police investigation into the twilight zone between legal lobbying and illegal kickbacks in federal public works contracts.
Which I applaud.
I am constantly telling Neuza that only a Scorsese could do justice to São Paulo’s Italo-Tupi mafia zeitgeist.
I have complained constantly that the Estado, like other news organizations, seems to be basing a lot of its coverage on anonymous leaks from insiders in the case, putting itself at the service of personal agendas.
Meanwhile, Veja magazine’s use of anonymous leaks to tie an unrelated story in the case is one of the sleaziest cases of journalistic malpractice I have ever seen — even compared to its election-eve “high-risk coverup” cover story. See Veja: The Senator Had Sex! But Is He Screwed?
And that issue has been widely debated after a federal legislator made a speech on the floor of the Senate about favoring privately owned news organizations with selective release of information gathered on the public dime. See Brazil: Globo and the Leaky Police. Again.
In that light, this “behind the music” promises to do us a valuable service: it promises to help us “consider the source.”
But again: the MTV “behind the music” metaphor used to frame it does not inspire immediate confidence in its grasp on the reality principle.
The PF has made a lot of spectacular cases — including spectacular busts and suspensions of senior federal policemen — in recent months. Between 1994 and 2002, it conducted 40 full-scale operations of this kind. From 2003-2006, it conducted nearly 400.
At the same time, there are federal policemen like Edmilson “Bruno Surfistinha” Bruno — who leaked photos of the infamous “mountain of money” to a select group of media outlets, including the Estadão, on election eve.
The PF union has called several “folded arms” days and other mini-strikes recently as a law regulating strikes by public servants works its way through the congress. Muted clashes over alleged abuse of law enforcement powers for political purposes have occasionally broken out. Arrest, Detain, Then Discover the Crime.
And there has been quite a bit of other press recently questioning the “gangbusters” public relations the agency has enjoyed — starting with a James Bond-style IstoÉ cover story late last year.
The problems in passport control, where a glitch recently affected the rollout of a new high-tech green ID for itinerant Tupis, is made much of.
But is the federal police really “in crisis,” as we are told in the lede here? Maybe.
But the real substance of this story — once you get past the elaborate “narrative lede,” with its glittering generalities — is simply to publish the versions of two senior federal police officials who have just been suspended, and the judge who authorized the surveillance.
Put that in the lede. If I want to read about Scorsese, I will turn to the entertainment pages.
Also, in its recital of facts and setting of the stage, the story focuses on two cases of insider leaking, but makes no mention of the elephant in the room here: PF agents caught trying to foil the two big judicial and police corruption cases, Themis in São Paulo and Hurricane in Rio de Janeiro. That might suggest that the PF does not always fail to investigate its own, might it not?
Here’s how Caros Amigos, for example — the folks from the Yellow House practice some of the best investigative journalism in Brazil — would have framed this story:
Q: You have just been suspended from your post. Why was that, do you think?
A: Look, Operation Straight Razor was originally set up to investigate federal police agents suspected of leaking information to investigation targets …
That is actually quite a revelation, if true.
In the Estadão story, it’s buried about nine paragraphs in.
The infotainment-driven phony crisis is a high Brazilian art form.
So filter this “narrative journalism” carefully before consuming.
SALVADOR – Com 230 pessoas grampeadas, pelo menos 700 linhas telefônicas monitoradas e 16 meses de duração, a Operação Navalha exibiu publicamente os enroscos entre políticos e a turma de Zuleido Veras – mas deixou em seus bastidores um amontoado de trocas de acusações entre delegados de primeiro escalão e vazamentos de informações que mostram uma Polícia Federal em crise, incapaz de investigar seus próprios quadros e metida em uma disputa interna pelo poder.
With 230 persons wiretapped and at least 700 telephone lines monitored over 16 months, Operation Straight Razor has put the cozy relationships among politicans and the lobbyists of Gautama on public display. Backstage, however, it has produced a bitter exchange of accusations among high-ranking PF officials and leaks that show a federal police in crisis, incapable of policing its own ranks and enaged in an internal power struggle.
Italy, like U.S. forces in Iraq, could use a few competent Arabists, according to two Spanish translators testifying in the trial of a suspect in the March 11, 2004 terror attacks in Madrid.
I remember reading that most of the statements of Curveball, the prewar source on Iraqi WMD, were consumed by U.S. intelligence using English translations of the German translations of interview conducted in both bad German and Arabic. English translations made by translators who knew German. But not Arabic.
Right. No U.S. intelligence translator worked directly off the primary source material. That is what I remember reading. It was a game of Chinese whispers.
Dos intérpretes que transcribieron por segunda vez las conversaciones en las que el acusado Rabei Osman El Sayed, Mohamed El Egipcio, se atribuía la autoría del 11-M, han afirmado que la traducción italiana tiene “graves errores” y se hizo con “ligereza y poca responsabilidad” para crear un contexto que realmente no existía. Esta segunda traducción de las conversaciones que El Egipcio mantuvo en Italia, donde fue detenido el 7 de junio de 2004, con su discípulo Yahia Mouad Mohamed Rajah, es la última prueba pericial que se ve en el juicio y, según los dos traductores, “el 90% de la transcripción tiene poco que ver con las traducciones italianas”.
Two translators who transcribed, for a second time, the conversations in which the accused, Rabi Osman “Mohammed the Egyptian” Al-Sayyid confesses to responsibility for the Madrid terror attack of March 11, 2004, have said the Italian translation contains “serious errors” and was done “carelessly and irresponsibly” in order to create a context that in fact did not exist. This second translation of the Egyptian’s conversations in Italy, where he was arrested on June 7, 2004, with his disciple Yahyah Mu’ad Mohammed Rajah, is the last piece of technical evidence examined during the trial and, according to the two translators, “90 percent of the transcription has little to do with the Italian translations.”
De hecho, los traductores, que son los que habitualmente realizan la labor de intérpretes en el proceso del 11-M, creen que hay algunas frases que se han malinterpretado por desconocimiento de la lengua y la cultura árabes.
In fact, the translators, who have routinely worked as interpreters in the 11-M inquiry, believe that some phrase were misinterpreted because of a lack of understanding of the Arab language and culture.
“Did Larry Rohter do good journalism?” Brazilian Press Association, 2004. The government tried to have the Times reporter’s visa cancelled over a [bullshit hit-piece sourced to sleazy hacks, when sourced at all] implying the president of Brazil was a drunken lout. Sponsoring the habeas corpus that allowed him to stay: then-Senator Sérgio Cabral, now governor of Rio de Janeiro.
Attribution to another publication … cannot serve as license to print rumors that would not meet the test of The Times’s own reporting standards. Rumors must satisfy The Times’s standard of newsworthiness, taste and plausibility before publication, even when attributed. And when the need arises to attribute, that is a good cue to consult with the department head about whether publication is warranted at all. –The New York Times, Guidelines on Integrity
One of Mr. Baker’s case studies reminded me of Larry Rohter’s recent story in the New York Times on the indictment of former São Paulo Paulo governor Paulo Maluf by the Manhattan District Attorney.
Wrote Rohter and Anemona Hartocollis at the time — editorializing in the news hole and attributing their glitteringly general factoids to the usual “local press sources say”:
In a somewhat bizarre entry into foreign affairs by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, prosecutors in New York City announced yesterday the indictment of Paulo Maluf, a major political figure in Brazil, in a construction kickback scheme at the expense of Brazilian taxpayers.
Larry never explains why the incident is presumably “bizarre.”
So I have been wondering just how “bizarre” it really was for the Manhattan DA to get involved in a foreign criminal investigation.
Especially in the post 9-11 environment, in which money-laundering has become a key part of the GWOT.
It seemed implausible that an international financial center would not take an interest in dirty business being done in its jurisdiction. It is bad for business for cockroaches to be spotted ice skating on the grill of your sandwich shop.
That, presumably, is why the Japanese busted Citi last year for not asking enough questions of men with lots and lots of tattoos, if you remember the case.
Alien Torts. Foreign Corrupt Practices. Extradition treaties. International conventions. KYC.
I am not a freaking lawyer, but I have vaguely heard that there are established legal mechanisms for such cases. Does anyone think the work of Baltasar Garzón is “bizarre”? His methods for claiming jurisdiction are certainly resourceful, but they work, do they not? Just ask the moldering corpse of Generalissimo Pinochet
Still, I have not been able to answer the question that the adjective “bizarre” in that lede invites with respect to the city so nice they named it twice: Are there any precedent cases?
I guess I could just call the Manhattan D.A. and ask, or even go to the library.
But that would be work. This is just a blog.
At any rate, yes, here’s one, from Venezuela: the case of Orlando Castro-Llanes, indicted by the ageless Morgenthau — first elected under Peter Stuyvesant — in 1996.
Some background first:
Another component of the nation’s [Venezuela's] discontent centers upon a major banking crisis that arose in 1994 and played out across the next decade. Carlos Andrés Peréz, president of Venezuela from 1989 to 1993, ran a particularly corrupt administration and was himself accused of misappropriating $17 million of government funds, leading to impeachment, removal from office, and confinement. During his time in power, he gave the nation’s bankers free rein, virtually without regulation, and they responded with risky lending, in many instances to their own affiliated enterprises, frequently cloaked in offshore international business companies (IBCs), often laced with outright fraud and, allegedly, supported by laundering money for drug cartels.
It was interesting to see the recent cross-promotion in Mexico City’s El Universal and Bogotá’s El Tiempo — both fine papers that I read regularly — for the first joint project of the Grupo Diários de América (GDA) 2.0.
The GDA is a sort of mini-Associated Press, (re)launched with some fanfare at the last meeting of the Interamerican Press Association in Cartagena.
Which Al Gore, invited, pointedly did not attend, prefiguring his snub of Uribe in Miami later in the spring.
The firm also boasts Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft as clients.
Other “properties” include Brasil Telecom and the Grupo Clarín (“Leading media conglomerate in Argentina”).
According to the blurb in El Tiempo, the GDA was offering “an objective, balanced look” at the Hugo Chávez phenomenon, with contributions from each of the group’s 11 news organizations.
When I get a chance, I mean to have a thorough read of the package. But I am not in any special hurry.
Two Brazilian news organizations belong to the GDA: the ClicRBS group, which publishes the Zero Hora daily in the southern states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Caterina, and O Globo of the Organizações Tabajara Globo.
Zero Hora had taken something of a vile, banana-republican turn since I first starting reading in 2001 or so.
But it recently started putting its foot down, it seems.
It fired Olavo de Carvalho as a regular freelance contributor, for example. See Carvalho x Zero Hora.
I do not track Zero Hora closely — I know fewer gaúchos than I would like, although I have met some fine tchê-saying folks from the zebu-roasting pampas. I remember being delighted to find Moacyr Scliar working as a columnist there. Scliar is one of my favorite Brazilian writers.
But I can tell you that I do not consider O Globo to be a fine paper.
A edição de 20 de maio do jornal O Globo oferece lições contundentes sobre manipulação da informação, construção de estereótipos e reafirmação de preconceitos – para ficar nessas poucas qualificações. A matéria de capa intitulada “Risco de favelização” discorre sobre a reivindicação da comunidade quilombola da Ilha da Marambaia, localizada ao sul do estado do Rio de Janeiro, de regularização de suas terras, garantidas pela Constituição. Ou, para ser mais exata, sobre a opinião da Marinha do Brasil, instalada na região, a respeito desse assunto.
The May 20 edition of the O Globo daily offers striking lessons in the manipulation of information, the construction of stereotypes and the reinforcement of prejudices — among other things. The cover story, headlined “Risk of Deurbanization” speechifies over a bid by the quilombola community on Maramabaia Island in southern Rio de Janeiro to formalize title to its lands, as guaranteed by the Constitution. Or, to be more precise, it expresses the viewpoint of the Brazilian Navy, which is stationed in the area, on this point.
“Time to pick up the gun (off the press!)”: Governor José Serra of São Paulo at a press event last week with a Belgian FAL .762 rifle. The man very nearly faced a firing squad at the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile in 1973. The Chilean officer who let him go did face a firing squad for doing it. Mr. Governor, your media handlers have just produced the top 2010 campaign poster — for the other candidates. A photo from the same photo op was featured in the most recent edition of Veja magazine.
They have rebranded a PM occupation of the the shantytowns of the Zone Norte, originally known as “Operation Saturation,” as the Virada Social, reports the Estadão.
They have rebranded the PM operation as the Virada Social, in an attempt to link the operation to the recent Virada Cultural street festival — the “White Nights” of São Paulo, a reference to the wildly popular street festival by that name in Madrid.
The problem with that is that the relative success of São Paulo’s Virada Cultural was marred by truculent riot police.
Truculent riot police who administered a thoroughly gratuitous beatdown to concertgoers at a show by Racionais MCs.
In the first hours of the long-term occupation, the airwaves overflow with law and order editorials. The plan is to serve 120 arrest warrants for wanted suspects. Only 4 are successfully served, as I recall.
The headline story then becomes the PM’s announcement they have arrested a minor for illegal possession of a mico, a small monkey — an “environmental crime.”
After that, nothing.
A complete news blackout.
I set a Google News alert to be notified of any new coverage on the PM operation.
Nothing. Eerie silence.
In the meantime, the city government organized the Virada Cultural, a showcase for the city as a tourist destination. And deu que deu. See
Now, Operation Saturation is back from the dead, rebranded as the Virada Social.
But it seems clear, comparing this most recent report with reports on the objectives and tactics of Operation Saturation, that only the label has changed.
SÃO PAULO – O governador de São Paulo, José Serra, e o prefeito de São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab, lançaram neste sábado,26, no Jardim Elisa Maria, zona norte da Capital, o “Virada Social – Ações Integradas de Cidadania”, projeto que visa integrar atividades de segurança pública com promoção social nas regiões com altos índices de criminalidade na cidade e no Estado.
On May 26, governor of São Paulo and the mayor of the capital city, Gilberto Kassab, launched “Virada Social: Integrated Citizenship Operations” in the Jardim Elisa Maria, Northern District. The project aims at integrating public security operations with social promotion in high-crime districts in the city and state.
Vale recordar que las transmisiones de RCTV fueron suspendidas en 1976, por tres días, por difundir “noticias falsas y tendenciosas”; en 1980, por 34 horas, por transmitir narraciones sensacionalistas, cuadros sombríos, y “relatos de hechos poco edificantes”; en 1981, por 24 horas, por la difusión de “una cinta de corte pornográfico” y amonestada en 1984 por ridiculizar “en forma humillante” al entonces presidente Luis Herrera Campins y su esposa. Frente a estos antecedentes, resulta interesante revisar las actuaciones contemporáneas de RCTV, en contraste con el talante democrático que caracteriza a la revolución bolivariana. En el presente documento se muestran evidencias de que RCTV suplantó a los actores políticos y fabricó sus mensajes, violó la libertad de información, instigó a la guerra civil y al golpe de Estado, atentó contra el equilibro de poderes, ha establecido carteles económicos, entre otras conductas alejadas de responsabilidad social que exige el Estado y la quienes son empresarios y además usufructúan porción del espacio electromagnético.
It is worth recalling that RCTV’s signal was suspended in 1976, for three days, for broadcasting “false and tendentious news”; in 1980, for 34 hours, for transmitting sensationalist narratives, somber [alarmist?] scenarios and “stories about events with little educational value”; in 1981, for 24 hours, for broadcasting “a videotape of a pornographic nature” and that it was warned in 1984 for mocking “in a humiliating fashion” then-President Luis Herrera Campins and his wife. Given these antecedents, it will be interesting to review RCTV’s contemporary conduct and contrast it with the democratic nature of the Bolivarian revolution. In this document are presented evidence that RCTV supplanted political actors and fabricated their messages, violated the freedom of information, instigated civil war and a coup d’etat, attempted to disturb the constitutional order, set up economic cartels, and other conduct not consistent with the social responsibility that the State demands of business owners who use part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
A portion of the Venezueulan media reports that jackbooted thugs attacked peaceful protesters (Rubber Bullet Rashomon in Caracas). The Venezuelan FCC reports that Clockwork Orange soccer hooligans attacked and injured police protecting its headquarters, and has photos it says prove it.
The German government, meanwhile, has criticized the Venezuelan government over the RCTV incident!
The Merkel government swells the full-throated Eurochorus of Eurocondemnation that began in the Europarliament (where more than 700 Eurodeputies declined to debate or vote on a resolution to that effect)!
Reporters Without Borders characterized the measure as unequivocal and resounding or some such nonsense, according to a report in Peru’s La República.
La República’s editorial line is firmly anti-Chávez, note. But it also had the integrity to report the piffling turnout for the Euroresolution, and to locate that information close to the base of the inverted pyramid, not buried on the other side of the jumphed.
If I were the Bolivarian tyrant of the universe, La República would be saved from the lowest level of Dante’s hell — which is reserved, you might remember, for the faux-monnayeurs — counterfeiters and fraudsters.
I might even let it out of the circle of virtuous pagans and give it a shot at some mountain climbing in Purgatory.
RSF has morphed into the moral equivalent of Brazil’s FENAJ.
I no longer care what they say about anything.
The Chávez government ought to have put the spectrum out for competitive bid, the Merkel government said, expressing its preference for free-market solutions. Which seems fair enough.
The Merkel government reportedly did not question the legitimacy of the decision not to renew RCTV’s broadcast concession, however.
Chávez showed up to vote in the last election driving a red Volkswagen (classic) Beetle, an image that was widely reproduced.
Hello? Any lightbulbs going off in your head yet? Doha set to resume?
The U.S. Dept. of State called upon the Venezuelan government to reverse the decision. It did not get quite so excited about the decision to boot Verizon out of CANTV, as I recall. Maybe it was fooled by the feint towards Carlos Slim and MEXTEL.
RCTV’s satellite and cable outlets will continue to operate. Some 150 radio concessions, meanwhile, are also up for review and renewal. The government says it expects them to be renewed, despite “bureaucratic” delays, according to a report from Venevisión News — which did not lose its concession.
In a recent interview with RCTV owner Marcel Granier, the Globovisión network ran footage of the 1981 assassination attempt on the Pope in the background. I saw it. It’s unbelievably creepy.
You are constantly reading paranoid-sounding pronouncements from Hugo & Co., but no one every actually reality-tests them. Did Verizon really try to bug the Bolivarian bigwigs, or was that just paranoia? Verizon did, after all, give the NSA the keys to the kingdom back here in Gringoland. Ashcroft thought it was illegal? Monica Goodling tried to get him to put his John Hancock to the contrary position while he was all doped up in the hospital? Hello?
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
This blog is wholly funded by free-market New York City real estate speculation and personal private-enterprise elbow grease.
The Bolivarian FCC, known as Conatel, meanwhile, has published a 185-pp. “white book” on the RCTV case.
It makes interesting reading — as much for what it reveals about the Bolivarian revolution as for what it reveals about RCTV, which you can pretty much grok on your own by just watching it for five minutes.
“Straight-razor to the quick: the thread of the anticorruption operations has already [chopped off the head] of [the owner of Gautama] and [the minister of Mines and Energy] and now is nearing the neck of the President of the Senate.” Violent imagery straight from the media playbook of Mexico’s Gente Nueva. The article does not accuse the Senator of any relationship to Gautama, however. It accuses him of accepting money from a big construction firm, Mendes Junior. Source? None stated. Mr. Dines deduces it was the man’s girlfriend’s sleazy palimony lawyer, seen recently on the Jornal Nacional.
Since it had no evidence of the Alagoan politician’s ties with the Gautama scheme, the newsweekly went after his supposed ties to another contractor, Mendes Júnior. And as the editor could not ignore the explosive potential of the federal police operation, he mixed apples and oranges in one of the crudest leads in the history of Brazilian investigative journalism.
Alberto Dines of Brazil’s Observatório da Imprensa — if Brazilian journalism has deans, he’s certainly one of them — assesses Veja’s recent “the Senator has a love child!” scoop.
Translating Mr. Dines, I am always tempted to give him the voice of a crusty, Yiddishism-spouting old-school New York newspaperman from a fast-talking screwball comedy of the 1930s and 1940s. “What a mishegaas!” Like Zoidberg on Futurama, but less, you know, giddy and hapless.
It was interesting, meanwhile to read several stories from newspapers in other Latin American countries on the story.
Most framed the story purely as a sex scandal: Senator Calheiros was forced to admit that he had a child out of wedlock with a federal district journalist and was paying support. Which is about how I reckon it myself.
Really, the whole affairs reminds me of nothing so much as the Clinton fellatio crisis, which arose tangentially out of an investigation of a decades-old real estate deal.
You would think that that incident might have taught our Brazilian friends something, however: Clinton’s approval ratings remained strong, even though people disapproved of his personal conduct. Which was, without a doubt, really, really foolish and despicable. Much more despicable, really, than a grown man having an affair with a grown woman. He bonked a young intern. What a loser. He could probably have seduced Cherie Blair if he more self-confidence and ambition.
As to Veja’s accusations about the illicit source of those support payments: they have not been proved, no new information has come out to rebut the Senator’s partial accounting for the money — he is coming back tomorrow to try to account for the rest of the money — and Veja offered absolutely no evidence at all to support them in the first place.
Absolutely none.
Ecce Veja.
Veja tinha pressa: precisava mostrar que não foi ultrapassadana OperaçãoNavalha. Sentia-se na obrigação, sobretudo, de mostrar quetem futuro este tipo de jornalismo semanal da qual se tornou expoente no Brasil. Ou mais futuro do que o do jornalismo diário. Nessas maratonas, quem perde sempre é o maratonista.
Veja was in a hurry. It needed to show that it had not gotten caught flat-footed on the Operation Straight Razor story. If felt obliged, above all, to show that the type of weekly journalism of which it has become the exponent in Brazil has a future. Or more of a future than daily journalism, at least. In marathons like this, however, the marathoner always loses.
A decisão de antecipar de sábado (26) para sexta (25/5) a data de saída da edição nº 2010 pretendia substituir pelo impacto e a surpresa as falhas e omissões na denúncia contra o presidente do Senado, Renan Calheiros. Um ou dois dias a mais na investigação e, principalmente, um texto mais cuidado e uma edição menos afobada teriam dado à matéria mais consistência e menos semelhança com o que se convencionou chamar de jornalismo de apelação, marrom ou amarelo.
The decision to move up the publication date of Issue No 2010 from Saturday to Friday aimed to gloss over the failures and omissions of its charges against Sen. Calheiros with high-impact and surprise. One or two more days of investigating and — and this is the main thing — more careful writing and less hasty editing might have given the article more consistency and and made it less like what it is the custom to call “colored” journalism, whether brown or yellow.
The expression “yellow” journalism came from the color a notorious scandal-rag was printed on in the late 19th century. In Brazil, the notorious papers apparently looked more like the FT or the New York Observer. Accidents of history.
Rubber baby bullet bummer:Buenaluque after the incident. Source: Canal N. What is that? Some kind of plastic buckshot?
The director of the Press and Society Institute, Ricardo Uceda,said that was difficult to establish whether the attack was a direct aggression against the journalist or whether she received the impacts as a by-product of the police repression. –Correo, Peru, May 29, 2007.
Now that is worrisome, though the report does not fully substantiate the suggestion that the woman was singled out for agression, as the verb agredir implies.
I have watched a little of that program, and it seems pretty professional at first glance, with a heavy infotainment slant — sports, celebrities, travel. A Peruvian Fantástico, is my impression.
A weekly newsmagazine, it has not yet reported on the “assault” on its own reporter, though Canal N, which promoted the story, is part of the same broadcaster, América TV — which Toledo charged had received concessions in exchange for supporting Fujimori, under the scheme run by spy chief. Vladimir “Vladivideo” Montesinos.
This controversy led to directly to violence against its field personnel in 2002, according to RSF:
Elizabeth Huamán Perales, correspondent of América Televisión in Huancayo, was beaten by supporters of the ruling Perú Posible party on 17 December. During a clash between two rival factions of the party, she was attacked, thrown to the ground and her camera seized. She lodged a complaint against the attackers.
With that in mind, consider the La República coverage:
La periodista del programa Cuarto Poder (América Televisión) Anuska Buenaluque fue agredida por policías venezolanos durante la violenta represión perpetrada contra los estudiantes universitarios que protestaban en Caracas contra la decisión del gobierno de no renovar la concesión de transmisión de Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV).
Anuska Buenaluque was assaulted by Venezuelan police during the violent repression of university students protesting in Caracas against the decision by the government not to renew the broadcast concession of RCTV.
La reportera, de origen español, resultó herida al recibir varios impactos en el cuerpo de balas de plástico, según mostró un informe de Canal N.
The reporter, of Spanish origin, was wounded after being hit by several plastic bullets on her body, according to report by Channel N.
“Hemos intentado grabar. Me han empujado (la Policía), me han sacado… y cuando corría me han empezado a disparar por toda la espalda”, sostuvo Buenaluque, quien –pese a todo– dijo sentirse bien.
“We had tried to record. They (the police) had pushed me, had taken me out of there … and as I was running they started firing into my back,” said Buenaluque, who — despite everything — said she felt fine.
Efectivos de la Guardia Nacional y de la Policía Metropolitana lanzaron gases lacrimógenos y dispararon balas de plástico para dispersar a los manifestantes, dejando un saldo de varias personas heridas en la jornada.
Members of the National Guard and Metropolitan Police launched tear gas and fired plastic bullets to disperse the demontrators, wounding several during the day. Read the rest of this entry »
“Navy Intelligence Directorate: No loitering, we have orders to fire”: Peruvian military corruption scandal as seen by La República editorial cartoonist Carlin.
In Operation Hurricane, too, federal and state police were busted for giving confidential information to people who should not have it.
In another case — see Pela Internet: How Rio One-Armed Bandit King Paid Off Cops — a Globo TV reporter was arrested when it was discovered he received R$1,000 a month for handing over confidential information he gleaned as a reporter to gambling mafiosos.
The former head of ABIN, Brazil’s CIA, was alleged to have been mixed up in the Dantas-Kroll case, meanwhile.
Compare Leaky Peruvian Navy Continues To Founder. Do you think maybe Brazilian law enforcement is starting to “get” operational security? Putting the intelligence back in criminal intelligence, the stated cornerstone of its anti-organized crime strategy? We’ll have to see what the ever-skeptical Maierovitch has to say on the subject.
O diretor-executivo da Polícia Federal, Zulmar Pimentel, o superintendente PF na Bahia, César Nunes, e o delegado Paulo Bezerra foram afastados pela ministra do Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ) Eliana Calmon, relatora do inquérito da Operação Navalha.
Federal police executive director Zulmar Pimentel, along with César Nunes, PF superintendent in the state of Bahia and inspector Paulo Bezerra were suspended by Judge Eliana Calmon, who is overseeing the inquiry in Operation Straight Razor.
Luego del primer cobro realizado tras la vigencia del acuerdo ministerial que estableció el precio de la caja del banano en US$3.25 hasta el 31 de julio, los productores bananeros –salvo aquellos que suscribieron contratos previamente- afirman que se han producido violaciones al pago oficial, así informó la Federación Nacional de las Cámaras de Productores Bananeros del Ecuador.
Soon after the first harvest realized after the effective date of a ministerial accord setting the price of a box of bananas at US$3.25 until July 31, banana producers — except for those who had previously locked in a price — say that there have been violations of the official price, according to the National Federation of Ecuadoran Banana Producers.
El presidente del gremio de bananeros exigió que se inspeccione a las exportadoras acusadas de la irregularidad y, aconsejó a los productores negociar los contratos de entrega de la fruta lo más pronto posible pues el plazo vence en julio.
The president of the banana trade association demanded that exporters accused of this irregularity be looked at and counseled growers to negotiate their delivery contracts as soon as possible, since the deadline expires in July.
Por su parte, el presidente de la Asociación de Exportadores de Banano del Ecuador (AEBE), Eduardo Ledesma, explicó que hay un grupo de productores que se resiste a firmar contrato, mecanismo que se dispuso en el acuerdo ministerial para dar estabilidad al mercado.
For his part, the president of the Association of Ecuadoran Banana Exporters (AEBE), Eduardo Ledesma, explained that there is a group of producers who resist signing contracts, a mechanism that the ministerial accord provided in order to stabilize the market.
“I am freedom of expression.” La República (Lima, Peru), May 28, 2007. Not the regular cartoonist, Carlin, who is quite a bit wittier than this. The government Hugoland has pledged editorial independence for TVes, which will replace RCTV on Channel 2.
Buenos Aires, 28 de mayo. Intelectuales argentinos iniciaron una campaña hoy para respaldar al gobierno de Venezuela ante la “desmesurada” acción de la prensa internacional que intentó “convencer al mundo” del presunto “cierre” de la cadena Radio Caracas Televisión (RCTV) en Venezuela, cuando se trató del derecho a decidir “si se continuaba o no con la concesión de un espacio radioeléctrico, recurso inalienable para usar en favor de los pueblos”.
Argentine intellectuals launched a campaign today to back the Venezuelan government against the “excessive” conduct of the international media, which tried to “convince the world” about the supposed “closing” of the RCTV network in Venezuela, which really had to do with the right to decide “whether or not to continue the concession of a portion of the spectrum, an inalienable public resource.”
El premio Nóbel de la Paz, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, el cineasta Fernando Pino Solanas, los sociólogos Atilio Borón y Alcira Argumedo, entre otras personalidades, manifestaron sus posiciones a este periódico y condenaron esta campaña “como una peligrosa escalada de desinformación”, que puede servir de plataforma a otros planes de Washington.
Peace Nobelist Adolf Pérez Esquivel, movie director Fernando “Pino” Solanas, and the sociologists Atilio Borón and Alcira Argumedo, among other personalities, explained their position to this newspaper and condemned this campaign as “a dangerous escalation of disinformation” which may serve as a platform for other plans by Washington.
I agree.
Bork Chávez for whatever else you like — not even the leftist political parties in Venezuela are going for Hugo’s “one big revolutionary party” concept, for example, which smells too much like a latter-day Bolivarian PRI, as I understand it — but this is nonsense, and the campaign is nonsense. And CNN was part of it.
Most nonsensical of all: Reporters san Frontière’s ridiculous hyping of a Europarliament resolution on the matter as expressing a resounding Euroconsensus on and Eurocondemnation of the Bolivarian boob-tube holocaust.
Wake me when Jesse Chacón breaks his promise to afford complete editorial independence to TVes, then operator that will replace RCTV. I might then get excited and start signing petitions. Until then, stop wasting my time with nonsense.
Asimismo apoyaron la carta enviada por un grupo de importantes intelectuales y artistas británicos al presidente Chávez publicada por el periódico londinense The Guardian, donde afirman que es legítima la decisión del “gobierno venezolano de no renovar la licencia emisora del canal RCTV, que expiró el 27 de mayo.
They likewise supported the letter sent by a group of important British intellectuals to Chávez, published by The Guardian (U.K.), affiring the legitimacy of the decision of “the Venezuelan government not to renew the broadcast license of RCTV, which expired on May 27.”
I am continuing to read the report of the independent commission charged with critiquing the BBC’s business coverage, which has recommended, among other things, as follows:
Measures should be taken to strengthen the monitoring of impartiality issues in business and to ensure there is compliance with the BBC’s high standards. In particular, measures should be introduced to address lapses which occur when covering commercial issues. Presenters should be regularly reminded of their obligation to be impartial.
What are the BBC’s high impartiality standards, by the way?
A recent study on the BBC’s “post-impartiality” or “radical impartiality” suggests that BBC management has very explicitly rejected compliance with those standards in recent years.
Editorial standards and practices are for those who just don’t “get the Internet.”
See Impartiality 2.0, for example — a speech by a senior BBC editor at Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.
The commission cites the Neil report, “written after the Hutton Inquiry,” and alludes to the BBC Editorial Guidelines, Charter, and Agreement.
For the BBC impartiality is a legal requirement. BBC journalists will report the facts first, understand and explain their context, provide professional judgements where appropriate, but never promote their own personal opinions. Openness and independence of mind is at the heart of practising impartiality. We will strive to be fair and open minded by reflecting all significant strands of opinion, and by exploring the range and conflict of views.Testing a wide range of views with the evidence is essential if we are to give our audiences the greatest possible opportunity to decide for themselves on the issues of the day.
The word “sycophantic” — a very strong word indeed — is used three times in connection with a topic I follow fairly closely myself.
Writes the Budd commission:
Another challenge concerns the launch of new products. In its evidence the BBC acknowledges that there is a risk of appearing to endorse a company or product particularly when covering product launches. Our view is that these can be newsworthy events but presenters should avoid being promoters. For example, on Breakfast (BBC One, 8 December 2006) the two presenters played enthusiastically and uncritically with the Wii console.
“These people are manipulating the marketplace through pressure, protest, and politics” — Self-styled marketing visionary Faith Popcorn on “vigilante consumers,” a term she coined.
[Correction to the video: The "Rights of Response" program ran on Rede TV, replacing João Kleber's Tarde Quente for six weeks -- an afternoon, not a prime-time show. The hostess -- always shot from that three-quarters "I'm foxy!" perspective, note -- is a personality from TV Cultura, which is run by São Paulo's Father Anchieta Foundation. Lesson: Bloggers get the facts wrong, even when making a good-faith effort not to, as I do. Look for real news from teams of real journalists who know what they are doing and have the time and energy to dedicate to it.]
Direitos de Resposta (“Rights of Response”) is, I think you could say, a kinder, gentler, more diplomatic Brazilian version of the current Hugoistic-Bolivarian crusade against TV monopolies, telebasura, Veja-style phony journalism and the digital voto de cabresto perpetuated by partisan political control of the public airwaves.
Even the frequently truculent and banana-republican Folha de S. Paulo — which tends to editorialize in the news hole and will on occasion knowingly run falsehoods as fact — extends that right as a matter of editorial policy on its editorial pages.
In this case, the federal public advocate did just that: It filed a public-interest anti-SLAPP suit — a strategic lawsuit in defense of public participation — against João Kleber of Tarde Quente. In settling the case, it won the right to produce and air Rights of Response while Tarde Quente took a voluntary hiatus. Zoomed down the Via Dutra to Ubatuba for a week of bunda-ogling with the MTV Brasil veejays or something.
I will have to see if I can dig up the details on the alleged “human rights violations” they sued over.
The suit was filed by the autonomous Federal Public Ministry (MPF) Citizenship division, in partnership with a bunch of civil society groups, including Intervozes. I think the Ford Foundation funds some of those groups. Brazil recently convinced Ford to start producing off-road vehicles — dune buggies, basically — in the Northeast. At the time I thought I read this was partial compensation for a falloff in orders of the caveirão armored vehicle, but I may have been mistaken.
This is a damned interesting case to consider at this moment.
You could plausibly argue, for example, I think, that Uncle Hugo’s borking of RCTV merely rejiggered the configuration of the go stones in a zero-sum game of very limited dimensions.
The Venezuelan government does claim, however, that TVes will have complete editorial independence, the way pre-Bush ibn Bush Voice of America used to. And by all means, let’s keep track of that. “Hello, President” on VTV really is a bit much — Regis Philbin swaps out his perky blonde for the ghost of Che Guevara. But hey, in the land of trash TV, the ham actor is king. What do you expect? A Bolivarian Charlie Rose?
The strategy in Brazil, in contrast, seems to be to change the dynamic of the game by expanding the board.
“Qualitative leap” is the meme you hear most from President Squid and his policy wonks and flacks.
The idea is to let a thousand channels bloom, forcing the likes of Globo, Band, SBT, and Record to start to compete for market share against a broad range of viable alternatives — their viability to be subsidized by Petrobras earnings long enough to keep Six-Family capangas from driving these quilombos of the electromagnetic spectrum off the air with midnight cross-burnings.
Globo’s lobbying campaign, in particular, portrays this injection of competition into the market as an unconscionable government intervention into the free and open market.
Monopolists always sing loudest from the hymnal of competition, have you noticed that? Their guiding (mixed) metaphor: Jim Moore’s seminal HBR essay, “Predator and Prey,” where the “business ecosystem” actually looks a lot more like that game preserve where Dick Cheney blasted his buddy in the face. Drive up (drunk) and shoot birds with clipped wings throw in your path by stagehands hidden in the bushes. White hunter, black heart!
But droit du seigneur is not something we treacherous card-carrying ACLU pinkos recognize as a pillar of libertarian democracy. Hell, not even the Business Civil Liberties Union — there is such a thing, though I forget the exact name of it — does, as far as I can tell.
Which renders particularly grotesque the standard talking point of Mr. Kemal of Globo Journalism Central according to which “journalistic excellence” explains the famigilia Marinho’s market dominance.
Please. I regularly watch this nonsense. William Bonner and William Waack make Ron Burgundy look like Walter freaking Cronkite.
Underemployed Brazilian journalists and creatives tend to be wildly in favor of letting a thousand channels bloom, according my informal survey of opinion among the category. (I am sleeping with one. Cleaving only unto her and forsaking all others. What was I thinking?)
And why would they not be?
Brazilian journalists and creatives have nowhere to ply their trade. The job market is tighter than a Paraguayan 18-wheeler packed with counterfeit Marlboros and gambling-machine components. The pelêgo unions have been captured by management scabs.
Just look at the employees of Editora Três. Before Nelson Tanure came in as a white knight, they had not been paid in seven months. But no one quit. A job, sadly, is a job. Our dog hangs out in the park with the dogs of quite a few of those folks.
Blogging is all very well and good, but have you ever looked at non-bogus statistics on how many people actually make their living blogging? Not counting bloggers who blog for the “old media”? And living in your mom’s garage well into your 30s is a demoralizing thing. Just ask one of our neighbors there on Rua Juranda.
It’s a job market in which the Peter Principle meets the Hobbesian state of nature: Toadies are promoted to the level of their incompetence, and well beyond. Sort of like the Bush administration.
The national public television system now being debated in Brazil aims at creating jobs and outlets for professional creativity, decreasing the leverage the Six Families have over creative and journalistic independence. See Rede Globo Ratfinks Dissident Journos.
On the other side of the debate are the pelêgo “unions” who oppose, for example, doing away with dictatorship-era prosecutions for practicing journalism without a license.
Against that background, Eugence Bucci — academic media theorist and the former director of government broadcaster Radiobrás, whom you see looking rather cosmic in that “Rights of Response” segment — drafted a 10-point bill of rights for the boobs who watch the tube. The hedged manifesto is now nearly a decade old, but the pre-Squid think-tankery provides a useful benchmark for the evolution of this policy.
1. Ser informado de modo independente, recebendo os dados necessários para que forme sua própria opinião. 2. Estar protegido do sensacionalismo que potencializa a violência e a criminalidade. 3. Ser respeitado em sua condição religiosa, sexual, étnica, ideológica ou de nacionalidade. 4. Escolher o que entra ou não entra na TV de sua própria casa. 5. Ter uma alternativa às redes nacionais obrigatórias. 6. Ter acesso a bancos de imagem com a memória da TV brasileira. 7. Telefonar, mandar faxes, cartas ou e-mails para as emissoras – e para os anunciantes – e ser bem atendido e obter respostas satisfatórias. 8. Defender-se. 9. Criar grupos ou associações (permanentes ou transitórias) para protestar e se fazer ouvir. 10. Assinar e controlar um termo de compromisso com os que exploram as concessões.
Then again, my Portuguese ain’t exactly Grandes Sertões: Veredas. So let’s not go there.
As Chico Buarque wrote in Budapest, it ought to be against the law to make fun of someone for trying to speak a language not their own.
I agree. The reason I read and understand French but don’t speak it, for example, is because the French tend to be even snottier about people speaking the language of Molière badly than we are about the language of Shakespeare — and the Ramones.
But Tupis have always been more than generous with me as I mangled the fina flor de Lácio on may way to finally being able to (1) cuss like a sailor, (2) make fun of hippies, (3) “get” Casseta e Planeta and (4) work allusions to Raul Seixas and Roberto Carlos classics into my cheap boteco philosophizing.
Still: “obstination”?
A good dictionary and thesaurus could help you avoid such lexical nonadas.
Try the Merriam-Webster’s online edition or the American Heritage online edition at Bartleby.com.
The vast majority of gringo publishing operations use one or the other.
End aside. Bring in the noise, bring in the funk:
There are not many issues in Brazil where you are able to find unanimity. But when you talk about messing with Internet freedoms, the defenders spring up from radically different locations in the political spectrum. That’s what we are seeing again this week as Sen. Eduardo Azeredo, the protagonist of a recent ‘evil’ plot aimed to control Brazilian Internet users, made a strident reappearance with much of the same. The consideration by the Senate Commission on Constitution and Justice of a legal project under his authorship and intended to become Cybercrime Bill was postponed. The noise generated by the blogosphere has much to do with this outcome.
Oh, please. As an exercise in manufacturing consensus, this is some of the most hamfisted work I’ve seen. Wake me when you have something other than a nonevent to report. Absent any credible evidence to the contrary — cite one committee member who has changed their vote — this is your standard post hoc ergo propter hoc
… arguing that beating of drums causes the sun to reappear after an eclipse by citing that every time drums have been so beaten the sun has reappeared.
… and tempest in a teapot.
It reminds me of those cases at the FCC a few years back, where regulatory action was justified by calls from five little old ladies in Iowa who were phoning 70 times a day apiece, complaining about Janet Jackson’s titty or some such thing.
You remember those cases?
Now that was a triumph for the art of noise.
Given the current political configuration, this piece of legislation, co-sponsored by Antônio Carlos Magalhães (PFL-Bahia) — Sarney’s former Minister of Communications and hander-out of Globo retransmission franchises to political cronies — has never had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually making it off the table. See
On this supposed near-unanimity over the notion that the best Internet governance is no Internet governance at all — akaPalfrey’s Self-Fulfilling Prophecy — see also
My own hand-picked local go-to blawgers are — and also have a measurably superior track record as prognosticating pundits. Coincidence?
Mr. Murilo of the MiniC, meanwhile, is merely engaging in his standard stock in trade: glittering generalities and ignoratio elenchi — “suppression of evidence to the contrary.”
Give me the concession, Uncle Hugo. I really think I could run an honest conservative news channel that would credibly audit the government (what is the Bolivarian antinarco and anticrime strategy, anyway?) without ever once (1) lying, (2) suppressing information, (3) grudgingly admitting it if the Bolivarian trains just happen to run on time, mirable dictu, or (3) calling anyone a nigger or — as this “news announcer” did Evo Morales — a greasy little cholo spick.
Globo’s Internet news portal, G1 — a play on the term “F1,” or Formula 1 racing, I think — does something very un-Globolike.
In a background on the Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew the broadcast concession of RCTV, it actual prints the explanations of the Venezuelan government.
The backgrounder is balanced with a link to the blog of Jornal do Globo anchor William Waack, whose predecessor defected to SBT. Waack calls the decision “a grotesque act.”
G1 also reports on the business aspect of the issue, including an overview of the advertising market and the approach taken by RCTV’s competitors. I appreciated that. It does not disclose its own potential business interest in the situation. I found that very Globolike.
What do I mean by Globolike? See Chávez x O Globo: True Bluster and Phony Alarms, in which the Marinho family’s Gutenberg-Galactic Joy Division trains its 88mm “machine-gunnery of the typewriters” on the Copacabana Palace as the Bolivarian Blunderbuss tries to come ashore for a Mercosul confab, dressed in a gorgeous bespoke black suit and a red power tie and leaving a whiff of sulfur in his wake.
On balance, I say it again: If G1 is a harbinger of Globo 2.0, the future might not totally bleak. But that remains to be seen. Television still rules. Internet penetration is on the order of 13% — if you believe IBOPE-NetRatings.
A iniciativa desencadeou inúmeros protestos na Venezuela, além de críticas no exterior. O governo começou a responder às acusações, em um movimento que Chavez considera “uma das primeiras batalhas” de seu novo mandato (2007-2013).
The move unleashed innumerable protests in Venezuela, as well as criticism abroad. The government has begun to respond to the accusations, in a movement which Chávez considers “one of the first battles” of his fresh mandate (2007-2013).
Innumerable?
If I were the Bolivarian dictator of the universe, that word should be banned from news reporting. Either state some hard numbers, saying how you arrived at them, or shut the f*ck up.
I see little evidence of protests not involving RCTV employees, for example, much as the Bolivarian blogosphere is crowing today. CNN Español ran footage of a demonstration on another issue entirely to illustrate its coverage of the massive outpouring of support for RCTV. See Banana-Republican Fact-Check: CNN Español and RCTV.
A Europarliament resolution condemning the closing passed something like 48-22. There are 785 Europarliamentarians.
In a press release, Reporters Without Borders tried to sell the resolution as an overwhelming Euroconsensus.
Reporters Without Borders just gets less and less relevant. I blame the influx of the blogging buzzmachinists.
“The Dirty Work: The Shadow of Ernestina Ascencio.” Pictured: Soberanes of the CNDH.
At the meeting — organized by campesino and human rights groups from Veracruz and various indigenous communities — the CNDH deployed a monitoring team with video cameras, recorders and various employees, stationed at various points around the location where the forum was held.
Let me put this in the crassest of possible terms, terms that may make this post unsuitable for minors under the age of 17:
The issue here is whether an elderly Indian woman was telling the truth or not when she told relatives, before she died, that Mexican soldiers had gang-raped her in the ass until her guts bled.
Or whether Felipe Calderón was correct when he let drop, in a mid-March interview with La Jornada, that the woman had died of natural causes.
The Mexican national human rights commission then launched a media blitz in defense of the Calderón theory.
The Mexican military, which had originally issued an official bulletin saying (1) that “criminals disguised as soldiers” had done this deed, and (2) that it was doing DNA tests from semen samples found on the woman’s person, changed its story: Mexico: Defense Rewrites History in Ernestina Case.
So that is the issue here.
Crass words for an unbelievably crass affair.
The most surprising thing in this follow-up report on the Ernestina Ascencio case, now that the Veracruz governor and state attorney have stated that there was no rape, no unnatural cause of death, and therefore no crime committed in the case, is that now a representative of the CNDH — the human rights commission overseen by the Senate — is quoted as saying that the CNDH’s investigation “remains open.”
Come again?
These people do not even try to keep their stories straight.
Soberanes is also filing suit to have Mexico City’s legalization of first trimester abortion declared unconstitutional.
El pueblo de Soledad Atzompa “ha sufrido una gran violación” a sus derechos, luego de que la agresión a la anciana Ernestina Ascensión Rosario -quien presuntamente fue violada y asesinada por militares- ha quedado en la impunidad, aseguró el alcalde de ese municipio, Javier Pérez Pascuala.
The people of Soledad Atzompa “have suffered a grave violation [rape]” of their rights because the assault on the elderly Nahuatl woman Ernestina Ascención Rosario — who was allegedly raped and murdered by soldiers — has gone unpunished, said the town’s mayor, Javier Pérez Pascuala.
A video editorial cartoon for votoseguro.org — and not a very good one. I should have mentioned that in case mentioned here, voting … all » machines and diskettes used to upload software into voting machines were discovered incinerated in a vacant lot next to the warehouse used by the election authority’s third-party contractor
The found footage, a YouTube editor’s choice the other day, is of the “spam trap” installation by Bill Shackelford. How succinct and witty a “new market machines” metaphor is that? It makes me nostalgic for all those Survival Research Lab robot wars I attended in my UC Bersekeley days.
I am happier with my second attempt at a YouTube promo spot for votoseguro.org, a Brazilian e-voting forum whom I have observed closely, find very credible, professional and transparent and, well, admire, actually, for what they have accomplished — including finally seeing a permanent subcommittee on e-voting set up in the Congress.
Tufte in the Tristes Tropiques: Unlike some Globo infographics (see below), G1’s timeline of the USP occupation condenses actual information into a handy format. Bravo.
Só a “autonomia” une os diferentes em ocupação da USP (G1/Globo): This is a very enlightening piece of news analysis on the flap over public higher education in São Paulo from the Globo news portal, which, though it remains written in the ledger of journalistic Purgatorio in my book on some points, is a hopeful sign for those of us yearning for Globo news operations that would no longer deeply, deeply suck.
Vindos de diferentes faculdades e correntes políticas da USP, esses estudantes acreditam que um conjunto de decretos assinados pelo governador José Serra a partir de 1 de janeiro deste ano fere a autonomia administrativa e de pesquisa das universidades públicas estaduais. O governo nega. Mas é da reitora da USP, Suely Vilela, que eles dizem querer ouvir um pronunciamento.
Coming from different academic departments and political currents of the University of São Paulo, these students believe that a series of decrees enacted by Gov. José Serra staring on January 1 of this year violated university autonomy and research independence at state public universities. The government denies this. But it is USP rector Suely Vilela that they say they really want to hear from.
In the dark, no cats are grey: Unlike the Confucian yin and the yang, in the Manichaean fairy tales spun by Reuters, the Dark Side of the Force does not interpenetrate with the Bright Side. It merely infiltrates it.
The FT has published the report of the independent commission charged with assessing the “impartiality” of the BBC 2.0’s business coverage.
The assessment seems judiciously framed and competently conducted, using clear and practical criteria — though mind you, I am still reading.
The chairman’s foreword, for example, is based on an observation I often make about business journalism: Quality of service suffers when coverage is forced into the mold of “Manichaean allegories” and the fallacy of false dilemma — or what in the case of Larry Rohter and some of Reuters’ coverage I like to call “bad superhero comic-book plots.” (I Told You So: Rohter Simplifies the Plot Pra Inglês Ver).
First of all, writes Mr. Budd, there is a difference that makes a difference between political journalism and business journalism:
The challenge arose from the fact that the previous impartiality reviews covered topics on which it was reasonably easy to define two sides. In the case of coverage of the Middle East much of the news reporting arose precisely out of the fact that there was a conflict. That was also true, though to a lesser extent, about the coverage of the European Union. In such cases the existence of long-running disputes made the need for impartial coverage very apparent. The same applies to the coverage of politics.
Possibly, although in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you do also have (1) Hamas and Fatah blasting one another in the street and (2) a secularist Israeli peace movement that gets almost no ink at all, despite the best efforts of Amira Hass and her colleagues at Ha’aretz.
But that is not really the case in business. If most people were asked whether they were for or against business they would be puzzled by the question. Business is part of all our lives, whether as customers, employees or shareholders (directly or indirectly). People might object to some of the things that businessmen (by which they usually mean the bosses) do and might believe that there are certain things that should be done by the public sector rather than by private businesses, but those are usually specific rather than general attitudes.
On Ecuadoran television, presidential candidate Álvaro Noboa, a “pro-business” banana billionaire, declares himself a “messenger from God,” sinks to his knees, and “downloads Jesus.” The Brazilian technology consortium hired to conduct the quick count — the same used by Brazil’s own elections authority — failed to deliver, and its executives fled the country to avoid an election fraud probe. And another monument to faith-based engineering collapses into a smoking hole. Source: Telemundo (USA).
[UPDATE: I have changed 'monopolies' in the headline, which was a little tendentious of me, to "'corruption,'" since that was Correa's own word for the situation.]
El presidente de Ecuador, Rafael Correa, cuestionó hoy una supuesta entrega irregular de frecuencias de radio y televisión en el país, en un proceso presuntamente basado en “influencias políticas”, por lo que anunció que se combatirá esa práctica.
Correa today questioned a supposedly irregular transfer of radio and TV frequencies in Ecuador, in a process allegedly based on “political influence,” announcing the practice would be combated.
Según Correa, se han montado “grandes corruptelas” para negociar las frecuencias de radio en el país y en su programa semanal de radio, advirtió que su gobierno, de momento, investiga el asunto.
According to Correa, “vast corruption schemes” have been mounted to buy and sell radio frequencies in Ecuador, and warned on his weekly radio program that his government is looking into the matter.
“Smile, you’re being manipulated”: commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Globo television network. Source: Zero Fora.
Comunique-se reports on the latest in an ongoing sidebar to the Operation Straight-Razor case made by the federal police. The case involves lobbying, as well as alleged bribes and kickbacks, by a Salvador, Bahia civil engineering mogul looking to, ahem, manage political risk and secure federal infrastructure investments for his firm, which reportedly has 1.5 billion Brazilian clams in its contract pipeline at the moment.
The federal police, many have complained, is leak-prone in a way that tends to, ahem, further agendas not strictly related to law enforcement. It suffers, to coin a phrase, from Alberto Gonzalez Syndrome, under this theory. Which is not without foundation in public and notorious facts; see also Puta Sacanagem: Sampa Journalists Huddle with Bruno Surfistinha of the Federal Police.
Like the “blue cartels” of the Mexican police, the theory goes, different factions back different horses.
Now the Globo media empire gets accused of receiving the same sort of inside dope. Again.
Globo was certainly in like Flynn on the puta sacanagem case, in which, as we recall, the Alckmin and Serra campaign flacks showed up on the scene in force before the arrests in the case had even been made, and before the four friendly news outlets were summoned. Globo did TV did not even bother to show up, but was first to break the story on the Jornal Nacional that evening.
On the other hand, a Federal Police inspector also went on Fantástico recently — the Sunday prime-time infotainment magazine — and suggested that the Carvaval competitions in Rio this year were fixed by gambling mafiosos, one of them an ex-torturer for the hog heaven of the hard men (1965-1984). See
Globeleza, Globo’s Carnaval coverage, is its Super Bowl weekend.
Having the word get out that the fix was in might seem like something of a Black Sox scandal in the making — although a scandal would presuppose a public capable of being surprised by the notion that Rio de Janeiro might be a cesspool of corruption akin to Sodom and Gomorrah.
Who would have thunk it?
O senador Marcelo Crivella criticou a cobertura da Rede Globo sobre a operação Navalha afirmando que a Polícia Federa tornou-se “sócia” da emissora ao disponibilizar imagens com exclusividade para os telejornais da TV. “A meta de todo jornalista é conseguir uma boa notícia antes da concorrência. No jargão da imprensa, isso se chama ‘furo’, conquistado pelo mérito dos nossos profissionais. Para atenuar essa conquista, quem ficou para trás muitas vezes alega que houve favorecimento. A novidade agora é que a concorrência passou a ter, assumidamente, um porta-voz político-religioso. Apenas isso preocupa: o uso do parlamento e da religião para patrulhar a livre concorrência e, pior, a liberdade de imprensa”, rebateu a Globo.
Sen. Marcelo Crivella criticized Globo TV’s coverage of Operation Straight Razor, saying that the federal police had become “a partner” of the broadcaster by making images exclusively available to television newscasts. “The goal of every journalist is to get a good story before the competition. In the jargon of the press, it’s called a “scoop,” something our journalists achieve on their professional merit. To cheapen this achievement, the people who are left behind often allege there was favoritism. The new development here is that the competition now has, it seems, a political and religious spokesperson. Only one thing worries me: The use of the congress and religion to police the free market and, what is worth, the freedom of the press,” Globo shot back.
Globo is effectively an armed media monopoly. Why is it that monopolies always kvetch the loudest about the “free market” and the virtues of competition?
The Senator (PRB-Rio de Janeiro, the Mangabeira Unger party) reportedly has ties, meanwhile, to Globo rival TV Record, which is controlled by an evangelical church.
Child’s play: The Beeb used to model the English language; now it merely tortures it.
As the Financial Times reports this week that the BBC has been given a stern warning from an independent commission about “repeated violations” of its own impartiality policies in its business coverage — see BBC 2.0 Borked on Business-Friendliness — it is hard to know what to make of the following item:
The BBC is moving towards a new journalism model. Post-impartiality, or “radical impartiality” as the broadcaster itself prefers to name it, has replaced the old model of impartiality. Forces influencing the BBC’s development are political pressure from the outside, decisions by top management and a major change in how journalists perceive their role and work, Georgina Born says.
How can the BBC fail to live up to impartiality standards which it believes it has transcended?
It’s a textbook case of doublespeak, this: That which no longer remotely resembles what we once understood “impartiality” to be, in practical terms– gather as many of the Five Ws +1 as you can, push a microphone in the face of all sides of a given public case or controversy (bearing in mind that there are very often more than two), and presto! you are 90% done — is now to be understood as merely a more “radical” form of what it no longer even remotely resembles.
I suppose in a sense the butterfly is merely a more radical form of the caterpillar.
But it does have wings, and fewer than 24 legs. Which is quite a big difference, and explains why we have a different word for each stage of development. The BBC is becoming something else. Something troubling and questionable.
The report on which the FT reported, by the way, has apparently not been published yet, judging from the BBC’s Web site for the project.
Apparently there is a faster and more powerful connection than the instantaneous, simultaneous universal availability delivered by “the information society at Internet speed.”
Did the FT reporter swot for O-levels with some BBC staffer at Rugby or something, for example? Was it the Old Boy Network, to coin a phrase?
The Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Music at the University of Cambridge presented findings from her BBC research in a lecture titled “Post-impartiality: Transformations in BBC journalism in response to the Internet” at a seminar on public service broadcasting and the Internet at the University of Bergen on April 26-27.
I will read that with interest. The professor no doubt studied the issue carefully, but the fact is that BBC content managers have been making the rounds of the tax-deductible charity organizations — like the Reuters Foundation — saying as much for quite some time now.
An independent panel finds BBC business coverage to have committed repeated violations of the Beeb’s own impartiality standards. (And what impartiality standards are those?) Among other things, according to the FT, the panel found that BBC coverage tended to be framed by a comic-book master plot about “evil corporations vs. the abused consumer.” Meanwhile, Reporters san Frontières hailed a Europarliament resolution in support of Venezuela’s RCTV. In our latest newsreel, we present some interesting comparable cases to consider: The Wachowski Bros. film V for Vendetta prevents a dystopian Murdochian future; ABC (Australia)’s MediaWatch bashes embedded reporting; El Hojillo, from Venezuelan state television channel VTV, does the same to RCTV; alt.tv from Mexican “vote by voters” uses free partisan airtime to correct what it argues are the distortions of the Televisa-Azteca duopoly there; and — speaking of evil corporations v. the consumer — on its Sunday newsmagazine Fantástico, Brazil’s Globo bashes a competitor’s call center service using a comedy skit.
That’s correct: a newsmagazine with comedy skits. Eu vou misturar Miami com Copacabana / chiclete se mistura com banana …
“Time to pick up the gun (off the press!)”: The bald Toucan’s educational reforms generate waves of blog-driven noise.
On one of my first scouting expeditions to Brazil, I asked a friend: “So what, would you say, is the Harvard of Brazil?”
“The University of São Paulo … sort of,” was the reply.
The Fundação Getúlio Vargas was also cited by my friend. Indeed, USP, the FGV and Harvard have a historic relationship, going back to FDR’s campaign to keep Latin America from going over to the Axis. You’d be surprised at the extent to which that fateful decision is rued to this day, and how much nostalgia for Il Duce there is.
At the moment, the rectory of USP has been occupied by a student movement of some sort — I cannot really make out what sort, to tell the truth — for nearly a month.
Alckmin’s contribution to state higher education, apparently, consisted in funneling public money to private, Pat Robertson-style faith-based “centers of excellence” to turn out Brazilian Monica Goodlings.
Myself, I tend to think of Serra’s proposals as something of a partial dequangification initiative — part and parcel, for example, of his proposal to review every public works contract signed by the São Paulo state government since Paulo Maluf.
USP is, after all, unlike Harvard — a private university with a hedge-funded endowment of $40 billion and half a gazillion taxpayer dollars a year in grey-box government research contracts — a taxpayer-funded state university that in practice mainly serves the offspring of a small class of people who consider it their sacred duty to avoid paying taxes at all cost.
The paradox being that in order to meet the entrance requirements and embark upon your career as a professional post-secondary student, courtesy of the state, ,you need to have been able to afford a private education in the first place.
Because elementary and secondary public education is just abysmal.
Mexican abysmal.
The result: Free education for people who could have afforded to pay it, and barriers to access for those who cannot afford private secondary education.
And fraud and corruption in the competitive examinations system, by the way, as a recent federal police investigation uncovered.
That’s why I have tended to view the student revolt at USP as something of a Brook Bros. Riot Squad.
Now, there’s even talk of sending the state military police choques — the anonymous heroes of the Praça da Sé and International Women’s day, aiming rubber bullets at people’s heads — in to dislodge the protestors.
The faculty at USP and Unicamp are now on strike for a salary increase of 3.15%.
What the hell is going on? It’s a controversy with a lot of smoke and heat, one that hits close to home — we live near USP, and my bro-in-law, Geraldão, just took his degree there.
I have not managed to get my head around it yet, but I suspect you could summarize in general terms as a debate over how to dance the quango tango.
Zé Dirceu, former MR8 guerrilla, corporate lawyer — reportedly, his Rio law firm represents Carlos Slim — and Lula’s former “I am not a superminister,” comments a Folha de São Paulo editorial on the subject today on his blog.
MIT B-school alum Daniel Dantas: The embattled banker seems to bug some Brazilians.
CVM condena executivos do Opportunity (CartaCapital, Brazil): Journalist Paulo Henrique Amorim has been screaming for the Brazilian SEC-equivalent to do something about Daniel Dantas, Prof. Mangabeira Unger’s reputed pal — who is still mixed up in some hairy legal matters over industrial espionage in a battle with pension funds for control of Brasil Telecom.
And now it has.
Verônica, irmã de Daniel Dantas, e outros dois diretores são proibidos de administrar companhias abertas por dois anos
Veronica Dantas, sister of Daniel Dantas, and another two directors of Opportunity are banned from managing publicly-traded companies for two years.
A Comissão de Valores Mobiliários (CVM) condenou a dois anos de inabilitação como administradores de companhias de capital aberto Verônica Dantas, irmã do banqueiro Daniel Dantas, e outros dois altos executivos do Opportunity, Arthur de Carvalho e Maria Amália Coutrim. Os três, afirma a comissão, infrigiram regras de lealdade e diligência à Newtel, empresa que faz parte da cadeia de controle da Telemig Celular e da Amazônia Celular.
The Securities Commission (CVM) banned Verônica Dantas, sister of banker Daniel Dantas, and another two senior execs of Opportunity, Arthur de Carvalho and Maria Amália Coutrim, from managing any publicly traded company for two years. The three, the CVM found, violated laws of loyal competition and due diligence at Newtel, a company that was part of the bloc that controls Telemig Cellular and Amazônia Cellular.
Segundo apurou o inquérito da CVM, entre 2001 e 2002, a Newtel gastou mais de 10 milhões com advogados. A questão é que boa parte das ações judiciais patrocinadas pela empresa, também composta por outros sócios, entre eles fundos de pensão, defendiam exclusivamente os interesses particulares de Dantas, tanto na disputa societária com os demais acionistas das operadoras de telefonia quanto na briga com desafetos.
According to the CVM investigation, between 2001 and 2002, Newtel spent more than R$10 million on lawyers. The problem is that a good part of the legal actions filed by the firm, which has other partners as well, among them pension funds, were devoted to defending the personal interests of Dantas, including a dispute among the partners and the other shareholders and a dispute with dissident partners.
A comissão teve acesso, por exemplo, a uma nota fiscal emitido por um escritório norte-americano na qual o serviço discriminado era o acompanhamento do litígio nas Ilhas Cayman entre Dantas e o ex-sócio Luís Roberto Demarco.
The commission had access, for example, to a receipt issued by a U.S. law office describing the services rendered as following litigation in the Caymans between Dantas and former partner Luís Roberto Demarco.
Dantas was found to have lied his ass off in that case — a judgment upheld on appeal in a U.K. court.
A disputa interessava apenas ao Opportunity. “Tudo leva a crer que (a nota) era referente a gastos alheios aos interesses da Newtel. É uma falha gravíssima por parte dos administradores da companhia”, anotou a relatora do inquérito, Maria Helena de Santana. A CVM também percebeu a falta de comprovação de serviços de parte dos pagamentos a outros advogados.
The dispute was of interest only to Opportunity. “Everything leads us to believe that the receipt refers to expenses that do not apply to the corporate interests of Newtel. It is a serious fault on the part of the company’s managers,” the CVM investigator on the case, Maria Helena de Santana, wrote. The CVM also found that the defendants failed to prove the services rendered with respect to payments to other lawyers.
Os executivos do Opportunity podem contestar a sentença no Conselho de Recursos do Sistema Financeiro.
The Opportunity executives can appeal the sentence to the Financial System Appeals Council.
Child’s play 2.0: The Beeb used to model the English language; now it merely tortures it.
The report said that an interview with Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, was at times sycophantic in tone, while Angela Knight of the British Bankers’ Association faced an aggressive interviewing approach.
The BBC’s business coverage is guilty of “repeated breaches of its impartiality standards”, according to a report it commissioned.
On business-friendliness as friendliness to businesses with which one has a busines relationship and unfriendliness to businesses with which one does not — I think that is left implicit here, but it is what I think I see — see also A “Business-Friendly” W$J? and “Business-Friendly”: Civita and Murdoch.
A review by a former top adviser to the UK government cleared the world’s largest publicly funded broadcaster of systematic bias against business []. However, a lack of knowledge of the commercial world among journalists and a preoccupation with the consumer perspective was seen to lead to unconscious “partial and unbalanced coverage of business issues”.
Unconscious? I could swear I saw conflicts of interest. Absurdly hagiographical coverage of technology and “content” partners, for example.
The report published on Friday said that a lack of specialist knowledge and a shortage of interest on the part of some programme editors led to the BBC missing stories or angles.
“Straight-razor to the quick: the thread of the anticorruption operations has already [chopped off the head] of [the owner of Gautama] and [the minister of Mines and Energy] and now is nearing the neck of the President of the Senate.” Violent imagery straight from the media playbook of Mexico’s Gente Nueva. The article does not accuse the Senator of any relationship to Gautama, however. It accuses him of accepting money from a big construction firm, Mendes Junior. Also in this issue: “Why Dubai is an island of progress in the Middle East.” But see also UAE: Draft Labor Law Violates International Standards (Human Rights Watch, March 25, 2007). You’ve seen Syriana, right? Like that, or like Jorge 40 helping Chiquita with its collective bargaining strategy. Advertorial, just like the infamous Brazil issue of Paris-Match? Just guessing.
The Gazeta Mercantil reports that Veja magazine is embroiled in another dispute over allegedly nonexistent facts with a scandal-mongering story that does not cite a single source. Its cover visually links a Brazilian senator to a scandal in which it does not claim he is involved, for starters.
This is an example of what rhetoricians refer to as “the fallacy of misplaced relevance.” See also the infamous Alckmin “domino theory” campaign video, which a Brazilian court found to be, er, factually challenged and ordered off the air.
I follow all such incidents with interest.
Veja does lie an awful lot, I — and Brazilian civil-court judges — have found. But it can’t possibly lie — or be the victim of political persecution (aka “the Maluf defense”) — all the time. Can it?
Veja reported last year, for example, that a number of senior government officials, including the president and the head of the federal police, had illegal offshore bank accounts.
When that turned out not to be true, Veja burned Daniel Dantas as its source and argued that it was not responsible for the, er, misunderstanding. See Dantas and Kroll: Early Daze.
The Judy Miller excuse, in other words: “You are as only as good as your sources.” Never mind “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” Journalism at Internet speed has made epistemology irrelevant. Just ask Mangabeira Unger of the Harvard faculty, jokingly referred to now as Lula’s “minister of the future.”
It reported that the federal police had helped a suspect in the “mountain of money” case initimidate a witness in police custody in São Paulo. Veja suppressed documentary evidence — a shift log from the jail where the Operation Tabajara agent (erroneously identified as a card-carrying petista, as I read) was being held — that contradicted this (idle) theory.
Here’s an idle bar bet, then, based on the preliminary report and the general sense I have of the Veja way: the real purpose of this exercise was to simply to out the existence of the Senator’s “natural” offspring.
This poor, alleged Alagoan Slick Willie, as I read, has just been through some sort of confidential custody or child support hearing with his girlfriend. Shades of Paula Jones.
Veja will eventually backpedal on the corruption charges, pleading “unreliable sources.”
If I’m wrong, I buy the beer. But let’s keep close track.
Sen. Renan Calheiros (PMBD-Alagoas) is the president of the Brazilian Senate, which thanks to Brazil’s demographically skewed federalism is dominated by Northeastern states with relatively miniscule populations and, er, colorfully retrograde political cultures. Prominent in Squid’s personal mythology is his having arrived in São Paulo as a pau de arara — an immigrant from the Northeast, riding on a flatbed truck.
Penei
Mais aqui cheguei
There is a great deal of racial prejudice against such people — Brazil’s mojados, you might say — in parts of the country. And Veja’s Diogo Mainardi often gives voice to it.
Lulistical economic development policies have favored the impoverished, drought-plagued region, and there has been a political pay-off for the Mongolian hordes of Squidism as a result. See The Wagnerian Fat Lady Sings for Magalhães.
Other than that, I know little about Calheiros myself. Quem lê tantas notícias?
SÃO PAULO, 25 de maio de 2007 – O senador Renan Calheiros vai publicar, em instantes, nota oficial desmentindo a matéria da revista Veja. O parlamentar afirma que jamais teve qualquer despesa paga por terceiros, como notifica a publicação. Renan considerou intolerável a invasão de privacidade e afirma que nunca recebeu recursos ilícitos ou clandestinos.
Sen. Renan Calheiros will shortly publish an official statement rebutting the article in Veja magazine. The lawmaker says he has never had any expenses paid by third parties, as the magazine reports. Renan said the invasion of his privacy was intolerable and that he has never received illicit or hidden funding.
Veja diz que Cláudio Gontijo, lobista da construtora Mendes Júnior, uma das maiores do país, pagava R$ 16 mil por mês à jornalista Mônica Veloso, mãe de uma filha de três anos de Renan. O senador garante que tem como provar a origem do dinheiro. Que não há nada de ilícito em dar dinheiro à sua filha e que, portanto, tem todas as condições de processar a revista. (Tales Faria – InvestNews)
Veja said that Cláudio Gotinjo, a lobbyist for the Mendes Junior construction firm, one of the largest in Brazil, paid $16,000 per month to journalist Mônica Velso, mother of a daugther, 3, by Renan. The senator says he can demonstrate the origins of the money. That there is nothing illicit in providing money for his daughter and, therefore, that he has every reason to sue the magazine.
There were more than 700 abstentions, by the way. A little over 90% of the Europarliamentarians did not vote. (A fact that La República, despite its self-evident anti-Chávez bias, does not fail to report. Which is one reason why I continue to read it. It remains in touch with reality.)
Wake me when somebody shows credible signs of giving a damn, my dear.
When I taught writing and rhetoric to college students, I used to start out assigning my monsters — God love ‘em — to write me an argumentative essay on a fairly innocuous topic they felt strongly about.
Not hard to find: When you are 18, you feel strongly about everything. Whether Lego blocks packaged in preset forms — the helicopter kit, the happy fire station kit — were destructive of the creativity represented by the old-style free-form kit, for example.
That was an especially heated and interesting debate. I always had a secret affection for the kids who pointed out that you could hack the prefab Lego kits by using their parts for other than the recommended purposes.
Then I would assign them a second essay, asking them to defend the contrary position with equal passion.
They were almost invariably shocked! shocked! Hey, that’s the art of the anticipatioelenchi, I’d tell them.
“Anticipating the contrary.” In politics, it’s called “oppo research.” In education, the theory is that anticipating possible counterarguments rather than suppressing them is part of a process that makes you smarter. Instead of borking Gen. Shinseki, you put him on the red team and try, fairly and squarely, to get him to admit he’s wrong. Duh.
So I suppose it would be only fair for me to assign myself the same task with respect to the RCTV controversy in Venezuela.
Up to now — and laboring under the same lack of objective information as everyone else — I have mostly defended the contrarian position: that a television network that invites coup d’etat plotters to use its studios to coordinate their coup d’etat might not necessarily deserve all that much sympathy, given that the “danger to the nation and the hemisphere” they were looking to overthrow was, for better or worse, a democratically elected “danger to the nation and hemisphere.”
The opposition, which had more than one-third of the vote in the last presidential elections — enough to block Constitutional amendments — did not have to boycott the congressional elections. What the hell is their problem? They really seem to be rolling the dice on an unhedged bet hear. That, it seems to me, is a sucker play.
These Venezuelan exiles hanging out with Tony Montana in Miami and jabbering about election fraud in Hugoland in the last election — on my taxpayer dime? — are full of gabbling nonsense.
And the smirk on the face of that State Dept. spokeman on that day in April 2002 did more to bolster the Chávez plurality into hyperdrive in one day, I continue to think, than decades of Soviet oatmeal shipments ever did for the Beard. Even the Folha de S. Paulo editorial pages say so.
Likewise for much of the embarrassingly propagandistic campaign of logic-chopping in support of RCTV: see Banana-Republican Fact-Check: CNN Español and RCTV, which again, only reinforces the message of Granier’s detractors: The corporate media lies for a living.
BBC Español actually did a nice “man in the street” survey on the range of public opinion in Venezuela itself on the subject.
As you would expect, there is more opinion distributed in the fat part of the bell curve — “it royally sucks, but people should just turn it off if they don’t like it” (closest to my own general attitude about such things, but then again I have cable) and “it worries me, yes, but they did try to overthrow the government, after all” (which I can also see the point of) — than you would think from reading, say, Global Voices Online:
… we seek to enable everyone who wants to speak to have the means to speak — and everyone who wants to hear that speech, the means to listen to it.
How much? Who knows? Does it matter? Not according to GVO, which has nondisclose contracts with its donors, I am guessing. It won’t say. The Second Superpower has its state secrets.
On the whole, I cannot think of a journalistic enterprise more dedicated to the fallacy of false dichotomy — there are two and only two sides to every question — as a deliberate rhetorical strategy than GVO has proven to be since winning its award for “innovation in journalism.”
I have Chilean relatives. I read Chilean newspapers. I’m going to Santiago in July.
I have watched the aging Allendist in-laws having coffee with the aging ARENA-supporting in-laws while watching the Portunhol-speaking grandkids at play. And I’m telling you, the “he was corrupt but he got things done” take on Generalissimo Augusto is not as widely accepted as GVO would have you think.
Gen. Geisel, for example, was many things, but was not personally corrupt. And he despised Pinochet.
End digression.
La República, meanwhile, which has had a fierce battle on its hands defending its own editorial independence recently — see Peru’s La República: “We Are Nobody’s Punk” — by that token seems like an interesting source to look to for reporting on the official expressions of concern on the matter from various deliberative bodies and NGOs today.
El Parlamento Europeo calificó como un “precedente alarmante” la decisión del presidente Hugo Chávez de no renovar la concesión de transmisión al canal privado de televisión RCTV, y el ministro de Comunicación venezolano, Willian Lara, reaccionó con la advertencia de que “aquí nadie nos va a chantajear”.
The European Parliament characterized as “an alarming precedent” the decision by Hugo Chávez not to renew the broadcast concession of the privately owned TV channel RCTV, and the minister of communications of Venezuela, Willian Lara, reacted by warning that “no one is going to blackmail us.”
Latin American Zeitgeist consultant emeritus
"Eu sou o rei dessa folia, pra delírio da Fiel"
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