News & Updates :
Saturday, 14 January 2012 00:00
Luiz Felipe Limongi
The boycott by Brazil's mainstream media on a bestselling book revealing one of the most explosive corruption scandals in the country's history saw Brazilians giving heightened priority to the imperative of challenging the country's corporate media.The book “A Privataria Tucana”, written by Amaury Ribeiro Júnior, details a serious corruption scheme that took place during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration (1994-2002), involving prominent figures of the PSDB (Brazilian Social Democracy Party).
The author's investigative work exposed a web of political corruption, influence-peddling, bribery and money laundering among a network of public officials during the country's privatization process.
Despite the deafening silence of the main newspapers and news programs, news of the book spread like wildfire through social-networking sites and blogs. It sold all of its 15,000 copies in less than 24 hours and became an instant bestseller.
Even with the public outcry and the severity of the allegations, the mainstream media showed no interest in the book and made no mention of its existence. Perhaps because the scandal hits hard at the PSDB – the conservative favorite of the elites and the corporate media, and its main political figure, José Serra.
The political bias of the mainstream media in Brazil is not new. In fact, Brazilians have a word for it: “PIG”, or “Partido da Imprensa Golpista” (Pro-coup Press Party). It is a term used to describe the mainstream media's uniform and conservative editorial stance, and for its collusive and surreptitious manner. Brazilian journalist Paulo Henrique Amorim first coined the term in 2007.
It has since gained notoriety and dissemination through political blogs and social media platforms. According to Amorim, only three Brazilian families control the entire mainstream media: the Marinhos (Roberto Marinho of the Organizações Globo), the Mesquitas (Júlio Mesquita of the Grupo Estado) and the Frias (Octávio Frias of the Grupo Folha). Amorim, a renowned journalist, has been a vocal critic of the control they exert on all of the mainstream information, through their newspapers, radio stations, news agencies and magazines. Amorim argues that “in no serious democracy in the world, conservative, low-quality and even sensationalistic newspapers, and one single television network matter as much as they do in Brazil”.
Those three media conglomerates are, in fact, known to have conservative tendencies of censoring news unfavorable to the elitist PSDB (Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira) and its most prominent political figures. This stance, however, has not gone unnoticed. Brazilians have increasingly grown aware of the strategies employed by the corporate media and have given heightened priority to the need to challenge them.
Calls for the end of the conservative monopoly of the media and stricter regulations have been frequent. On more that one occasion, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva railed against media monopoly in Brazil and called for media regulation.
It appears that the corporate media monopoly is treading on thin ice.
We can only hope.
Image Courtesy of Mingaudeaco Blog - Amaury Ribeiro Júnior with his book, 'A Privataria Tucana'.
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