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In the '90s, "giftomania" led the biggest Brazilian newspapers to the
pinnacles of circulation and,
on the following decade, to
the discomfort of severe hangovers. Newspapers were actually
being distributed for free, which subverted the sacred principle that
the reader needs to pay for
information in order to respect it.
By
Alberto Dines
Bad actors are afraid of critics—and when they're famous, they hate them. The big press can be compared to ham
actors converted into divas. The diva gets furious at anyone who unveils her faults and failures. She believes herself to be
owner of the truth, adamantly reserves the power to judge and can't stand being crossed.
The irritation of O Globo's newsroom director with the comments of this
Observer about the frigid and bureaucratic performance of his paper in covering ACM's (senator Antonio Carlos Magalhães) megatap is an example.
In his long-awaited rentrée, Bernardo Ajzenberg, the ombudsman of
Folha de S. Paulo raised an issue which has
been forgotten but is of crucial importance: the damaging effects of "giftomania" and "gift-dependence". In the 1990s, this
phenomenon led the biggest Brazilian newspapers to the pinnacles of circulation and, on the following decade, to the
discomfort of severe hangovers.
At the time, concerned with the aberration which converted marketing departments into owners of the destinies of
the Brazilian press, this Observatório
kept the matter under continuing scrutiny. Newspapers were actually being distributed
for free, which subverted the sacred principle that the reader needs to pay for information in order to respect it. 1996 was the
peak of the "giftomaniac" madness. It is important to record that even before the
Observatório was born, the subject had
been raised in the section "Circo da Notícia" (News Circus), of the
Imprensa magazine. The treatment given to our warnings was the worst possible one. We were doing a favor to the daily press but were
treated as "enemies" and "defeatists". We tried to avoid a debacle and were labeled subversive. Now, almost ten years later,
Folhão e Globão—the newspapers who made the most use of the drug in question—concede that they were throwing paper
away. There is no residue left from those fantastic circulation numbers. Only the current debt, tightness and hardship.
When this Observatório insurrected against bluff journalism and the tapping mania which corrupted our
investigative journalism in both the newspaper and the magazine segments, we were also criticized, marginalized, treated with disdain
and spite. Now the promiscuity among tapping politicians and the interceptophiliac media are wide open, with devastating
results for both.
The ire of the Goliaths, when hit by a small rock from down under, does not limit itself to big issues. In cases as
momentary as the absence of composure, the irritation of those who are caught is identical.
When this Observer called attention—in April of 2002—to the
carnaval that O Globo made with the graphic
redesigning undergone by the Wall Street
Journal, there came the indefectible complaint against our "injustice". We demonstrated
that the fanfare had been exaggerated and that changes in the appearance of a U.S. newspaper did not deserve an elaborate
story on a full page.
Mostly because the office in charge of the redesigning had an associate who worked as part of the newspaper's
regular team of contributors (Carlos Alberto Di Franco). Everything indicated that it was a favor story ("reco" or recommended,
in the jargon of the newsroom). It indicated, mainly, that the design changes in the
WSJ had been overvalued as if the intrinsic
quality of a communications medium relied exclusively on its cosmetics.
In its 2/10 issue, New York Observer informs that the redesigning of the front page of the
WSJ, trumpeted as revolutionary not only by the board of the newspaper but also by the advisers who did it, has been disastrous. It is creating big
problems. The WSJ, who always intended to be a "different" newspaper, has become a paper without a differential. And worst of
all: the remodeling eliminated the big investigative stories, which were published on the front page and were responsible for
most of the Pulitzer prizes awarded to that newspaper.
The mystique of the WSJ went down the drain, along with the applause from
The Globe. The Observatório, who had
merely done its job, was the one who paid the price.
Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR—Laboratório de Estudos Avançados
em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of
the Observatório da Imprensa. He also writes a column on cultural issues for the Rio daily
Jornal do Brasil. You can reach him by email at
obsimp@ig.com.br
Translated by Tereza Braga, email:
tbragaling@cs.com
This article was originally published in the
Observatório da Imprensa (The Press
Observatory)—
www.observatoriodaimprensa.com.br
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