The ageless Gloria Maria of Fantástico: “Rio is Iraq.” See also “Rio is Vietnam” and “Rio is Haiti.”
… we need a communications policy and an ongoing dialogue with the mass media that will guarantee that the sense of risk is proportionate to the actual risk. — Rio de Janeiro mayor Cesar “The Naked” Maia.
Fazendo Media‘s Marcelo Salles — the journalist and documentary producer responsible for News from a Private War in the late 1990s — notes another instance of documents captured by police and leaked to the press, with sketchy sourcing, in order to magnify the awesome power of the drug traffic in Rio de Janeiro.
It’s a local example of a wider debate on relations between what I like to call “the leaky police” and a certain kind of law enforcement journalism that is very prevalent in various parts of Brazil.
The most egregious example of which may be a recent “report” on BOPE’s caveirão armored vehicle in which TV Globo simply handed BOPE officers a camera and edited the resulting footage. With no critical context whatsoever, and without having sent a reporter along to do any reporting.
As usual, Wolf Blitzer-style, we are promised “astonishing” images. Nothing is revealed.
Come to think of it, I may even be assuming too much in stating the Globo provided the cameras for that segment. Some of the footage is “gun camera” footage providing the perspective of a first-person shooter, in fact. On the state of law enforcement journalism generally, a good place to start:
Mr. Salles is, let us say, skeptical about O Globo‘s coverage of the drug traffic’s homegrown edition of Sun Tzu. I am trying to dig up the graphics in question here, but they are not readily findable on the newspaper’s Web site at the moment (search by Yahoo!).
On rumors and reports that professional military men are advising the drug traffic, see also
I will try to translate some of Salles’ dispatches from an eyeball inspection tour of the community, where most journalists fear to tread (as I would.)
Dia de domingo, vendagem ampliada, o “Globo” estampa no coração da primeira página ilustrações toscas de táticas de combate, acompanhadas da manchete: “Alemão usa manual de guerrilha feito por militar”. Na manhã do dia seguinte, ontem, o secretário de Segurança Pública anunciou que o “manual” apreendido pela polícia comprovava a necessidade das investidas policiais contra o Complexo do Alemão.
On Sunday, when it sells more copies, the O Globo newspaper features, on prime front-page real estate, crude illustrations of combat tactics, accompanied by the headline “Alemão uses manual written by a soldier.” On the following day, Rio’s secretary of public safety announced that the “manual” apprehended by police proves the need for police assaults on the Complexo do Alemão.
Taí, não deixa de ser uma metáfora curiosa. Justifica-se a matança promovida pela polícia a partir de rabiscos rudimentares, que lembram o traçado de uma criança. Uma explicação infantil. Assim como infantil é esse joguinho feito entre Globo e governo do Estado, justo no momento em que os laudos comprovam que pessoas foram torturadas e executadas a sangue frio, inclusive com tiros pelas costas, no dia 27 de junho. Interessante…
It remains a curious metaphor. Police killings are justified based on crude sketches that resemble the tracings of a child. It is itself a childish argument. As is this little game between O Globo and the state government, at the very moment in which autopsy reports show that people were tortured and executed in cold blood, including shot in the back, on June 27. Interesting.
Isso prova que os moradores, em quem o “Globo” nunca acredita, estavam falando a verdade. E a polícia estava mentindo. E o governo do Estado e seus burocratas estavam mentindo. Mas o “Globo” deu 95% do espaço para sustentar essas mentiras, nos dias seguintes à matança. E os outros 5% eram coisas do tipo: “moradores afirmam que teriam…”, assim, sempre no futuro do pretérito, que é o jeito do jornal publicar uma informação em que não acredita ou que deseja desqualificar. Mas de repente os laudos com provas gravíssimas saem de cena e entra esse “manual de guerrilha”.
This shows that residents, whom O Globo has never believed, were telling the truth. And the police were lying. And the state government and its bureaucrats were lying. But O Globo dedicated 95% of the space to shore up these lies in the days following the killings. The other 5% was given over to things like “residents says that there may have been,” like that, always in the [subjunctive], which is a newspaper’s way of publishing information it does not believe in or wishes to disqualify. But suddenly the autopsy reports exit stage left and this “manual of war” makes an entrance.
Para completar o serviço, o “Globo” publica mais uma chamada na primeira página, onde se anuncia com espanto: “O manual ‘ensina até como monitorar as frequencias de rádio da polícia'”. Ora, ora, quanta hipocrisia… Qualquer foca sabe que os jornalões monitoram a freqüência da polícia. A ordem é ter sempre alguém na “escuta” e quando ouvir um “triplo uno”, que significa homicídio, telefonar para a polícia, mentir dizendo que alguém ligou fazendo a denúncia, e pegar mais informações. Então que grande escândalo é esse? Vamos brincar de sensacionalismo também: “Jornalões monitoram freqüência da polícia”. Aí na seqüência alguém telefone para a polícia federal, anuncia o “furo” e pergunta: “Ei, vocês não vão fazer nada?” Que tal?
To complete the job, O Globo publishes a big jump headline on the front page in which it announces breathlessly: “The manual teaches how to monitor police radio frequencies.” God, the hypocrisy. Any first-year journalist knows that all the newspaper monitor the police bands, with orders to always have somebody listening in. Whenever they hear a “111” — the code for homicide — they call the police and lie, saying they are calling to report a crime, and try to get more information. Let us play the sensationalism game as well: “Newspaper monitor police bands!” Then have someone call up the federal police with the scoop and say, “Well? Aren’t you going to do anything?” How about it?
No jornal de hoje, o tal manual de guerrilha continua rendendo. Manual, aliás, que a polícia já conhecia há dois anos. Mas de repente virou novidade pro “Globo”. Hoje a chamada de capa, assustadíssima, avisa que o “chefe” do tráfico tem mais seguranças (38) que o presidente da República e quase o mesmo número de agentes (40) que protegem o maior tirano da história, George Bush.
In today’s newspaper, they are still milking the so-called “guerilla manual.” A manual that the police have known about, by the way, for two years. But suddenly it’s news to O Globo.
On O Globo, see also O Globo: Rotten Apple of the Associated Imprensa.
The New Market Machines 