{"id":13866,"date":"2014-03-09T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T12:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=13866"},"modified":"2018-07-10T10:02:57","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T13:02:57","slug":"favelas-find-a-place-in-the-newsroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=13866","title":{"rendered":"Favelas Find a Place in the Newsroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For the original by Andressa Cabral and Rodrigues Moura in Portuguese\u00a0<\/em>for Viva Favela click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The democratization of higher education, spurred by scholarship programs and education public policy, is changing the face of many professions that had previously been out of reach of students from low-income families. Such is the case with journalism. Today\u2019s newsrooms reflect a bit more of the diversity of Brazilian society, since they have begun to include more journalists from favelas and the urban periphery. Journalism students Bruno Queiroga, 23, and Monica Leal, 20, residents of\u00a0<\/span>Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, and Marcelo Resende, 21, from\u00a0<\/span>Jacarezinho<\/a>, are part of this new generation of journalists preparing to begin their careers. They spoke about their motivations for choosing journalism. They are betting that their backgrounds will work to their advantage, providing them with a knowledge of the city that sets them apart from their colleagues from other income brackets.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cI have always worked to show favelas in a different light. I think I did that at college, showing people around me what a favela could do, what a person from a favela could do,\u201d says Bruno, a student in his final semester\u00a0at FACHA (H\u00e9lio Afonso Integrated Colleges). He says he chose the profession as a way to tell new stories and to sharpen people\u2019s critical awareness. But he believes his own trajectory has already contributed to transforming the views of his university and internship colleagues. \u201cThe fact that I come from a favela has allowed other people to see, in a natural way, favela residents in an academic environment, without a complex about being there. People from favelas and from the outskirts of the city are able to show sides of the story that the mainstream press normally doesn\u2019t show,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Monique Leal, who is in her penultimate semester\u00a0at UNISUAM, believes that her university studies have changed her own way of seeing, allowing her to observe the world, and especially the favela, from a new angle. \u201cJournalism really changed the way I see the favela. Before (university) I would just come and go, without noticing anything. Now I want to know the whole story. I want to look for information that didn\u2019t matter to me before, for example the story of my community\u2019s evolution,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The students agree that the greatest obstacle to the profession is the barrier of higher education, despite the fact that since 2009 a diploma hasn\u2019t been required [to work in journalism]. The lack of incentive and the need to work at a young age makes pursuing higher education complicated for students. \u201cMost favela residents aren\u2019t used to seeing their relatives going to college. Some start working very young, and others follow negative paths,\u201d says Monique. Marcelo Resende, who is in the second\u00a0year at Rio de Janeiro’s State University (UERJ), agrees. \u201cFavela residents have the problem that they see so few examples of how education can bring about a better life for someone, either in the favela or elsewhere,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Diversity brings greater objectivity<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Bruno witnessed firsthand the shift in journalists\u2019 socio-cultural profile. \u201cWhen I was an intern, the oldest people in the editing room were from neighborhoods like Copacabana, Laranjeiras, Niter\u00f3i\u2026 Today, the number of people in journalism schools from favelas is much greater,\u201d he says. T\u00e1ssia di Carvalho, a journalist at the newspaper O Dia<\/em>, shares this perception. A resident of Belford Roxo, in the Baixada Fluminense<\/a>, she has seen professionals from the periphery begin to enter the newsroom. \u201cJournalism has changed a lot since I was in college in 2005. Today there are many more black students, favela and Baixada residents. In our editing room there are journalists from a variety of places, like Bangu, Belford Roxo and Nova Igua\u00e7u, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

T\u00e1ssia thinks it\u2019s extremely important that people from favelas enter the profession since they contribute greatly to the work. \u201cPeople from favelas have a lot to say after decades of forced silence. And mixing is important everywhere. Different people bring different ways of seeing that can enrich and expand the team,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the newsroom, the principle of objectivity is the winner from the broadened dialogue brought about by diverse backgrounds. \u201cI am not just a journalist \u2013 I\u2019m first and foremost a citizen who works to undo certain preconceived notions, be they racial, political, social, sexual, economic, etc. We have to fight against popular misconceptions,\u201d concludes Resende.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original by Andressa Cabral and Rodrigues Moura in Portuguese\u00a0for Viva Favela click here. The democratization of higher education, spurred by scholarship programs and education public policy, is changing the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":44955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1294,329,1330],"tags":[399,400,460,1700,32,1197,577,499,1117,534,37,398],"writer":[1115,1116],"translator":[508],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-solutions","9":"category-translation","10":"tag-access-to-higher-education","11":"tag-affirmative-action","12":"tag-baixada-fluminense","13":"tag-belford-roxo","14":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","15":"tag-greater-rio","16":"tag-inclusion","17":"tag-jacarezinho","18":"tag-journalism","19":"tag-misperceptions","20":"tag-north-zone","21":"tag-university","22":"writer-andressa-cabral","23":"writer-rodrigo-moura","24":"translator-rachel-fox"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=13866"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=13866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}