{"id":15952,"date":"2014-06-11T11:30:12","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T14:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=15952"},"modified":"2015-12-23T22:22:33","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T01:22:33","slug":"the-world-cup-of-lazy-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=15952","title":{"rendered":"The World Cup of Lazy Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

While finishing up a news story for my current employer, a foreign news agency emailed me asking if any vehicles were on fire because of that days\u2019 bus strike<\/a>. They\u2019d seen footage from the last time the citizens of Rio made their feelings known and were looking for something in a similar shade of Angry Violent Brazilian. They didn\u2019t mention the middle class workers who couldn\u2019t afford their basic needs and focused on large things burning because, of course, \u201cthat\u2019s what makes good TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though I couldn\u2019t see anything on fire from my Copacabana hotel room, I checked some local sources to see if there was anything with wheels being burned anywhere and found that on this night, the protesters of Rio were keeping their anger to themselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When I relayed to the foreign (let’s call it American) news agency that nothing relevant was on fire, but that I could probably get them an intimate portrait of one of the bus drivers on strike, the emails stopped. No carnage, no story.<\/p>\n

As someone who only gets paid when someone buys the stories I\u2019m selling, I thought about writing them back and pitching something using buzzwords like \u201cfavela violence\u201d or \u201cpolice shot\/killed\u2026\u201d or simply \u201cFAVELA!!!\u201d, but I thought it best to finish the work I was currently being paid for.<\/p>\n

Talking to journalists throughout Brazil these last few weeks of covering the buildup to the World Cup, the one thing they all say is that the only stories editors across the world are interested in fall into the Angry Violent Brazilian Who Might Mess Up The World Cup category, or what can only be described as \u201cpoverty porn.\u201d Camera people who are based here say the same thing–everyone wants shots of people being poor in the favelas and\/or angry young people in masks and headscarfs. They are filming the exact same story over and over, just in different languages.<\/p>\n

Every journalist talked with regret and helplessness. There are stories here with more depth that deserve to be told, but that\u2019s not what\u2019s selling.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m not immune to this formula. I\u2019ve interviewed several protesters, strikers and people simply upset with the Brazilian government. As I\u2019m here to cover World Cup-related stories, I pushed them to mold their experience to the World Cup, even if all they really wanted to talk about was wondering how they were going to feed their kid the next day.<\/p>\n

One journalist said the reason it\u2019s like this is because television news feels it\u2019s competing with reality television. If a majority of the country had to choose between a thoughtful profile of a family from another country trying to make ends meet and a faux-famous family on a luxury vacation, apparently they\u2019ll always choose the latter.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not my taste and it doesn\u2019t seem to be the taste of the journalists I spoke to. But are we the audience? Apparently not. News agencies and TV networks seem to only care about whether males aged 25 to 49 are going to look up from their iPhone for a few minutes and they believe the only way that\u2019s going to happen is if something\u2019s on fire or more importantly, something \u201ccould\u201d potentially be on fire.<\/p>\n

Has the media trained the viewing public or is this what the viewing public really wants? If all the news outlets decided to stop focusing on scaring us and turned their attention to a well-rounded, moderate telling of the facts, would the soccer moms in Iowa revolt?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The truth is that while of course there are some terrible things happening in some of the hundreds of favelas in Rio and there have been necessary protests and there are threats of more, there are many, many more stories that can and should be told. For example, the Asa Branca<\/a> favela is the happiest place I\u2019ve been to in Rio yet it\u2019s three\u00a0decades of remarkable architectural progress is being threatened by wealthy developers. The recently evicted residents of the former Telerj complex<\/a> I spoke to turned down the offer of Bolsa Fam\u00edlia<\/a>, Brazil\u2019s cash transfer welfare program, because they didn\u2019t want a handout, they just want a roof over their heads. And in Mar\u00e9<\/a>, the site of the latest police occupation<\/a>, there is inspiring community organizing<\/a> and engaging public security debates happening.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Would people around the world care about these stories? Isn\u2019t part of our job to educate? When you look at the accompanying photo what do you see? Do the words “slum<\/a>” or “poverty” come to mind? Or do you see history and culture and what can only be viewed\u00a0as a remarkable architectural achievement?<\/p>\n

Fear and sensationalism are easy to produce. Stories with depth take time. Take time to make. Take time to watch. News agencies want 15 seconds of a bus on fire, 10 seconds of someone yelling angrily into a camera, and a five second quote to put fear into World Cup tourists.<\/p>\n

All of us–journalists, editors, and those with the remotes in our hands–owe it to the people on the ground and to ourselves to do much better.<\/p>\n

Catalytic Communities offers support to journalists<\/a> looking to cover Rio’s favelas and has compiled a list of community contacts across the city with story ideas and themes in a spreadsheet<\/a> and map<\/a> for contact during the World Cup. For more information click here<\/a> or email worldcupmedia@catcomm.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas While finishing up a news story for my current employer, a foreign news agency emailed me asking if any vehicles were on fire because of that days\u2019 bus strike. They\u2019d seen […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":15966,"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":[1736,1288],"tags":[27,756,280,1075,342,1074,1117,23,1366,453,1351,167],"writer":[1315],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-highlight","9":"tag-asa-branca","10":"tag-community-organizing","11":"tag-complexo-da-mare","12":"tag-critique","13":"tag-favela-architecture","14":"tag-international-reporting","15":"tag-journalism","16":"tag-mass-media","17":"tag-analyzing-media-portrayal-of-favelas","18":"tag-stigma","19":"tag-telerj","20":"tag-world-cup","21":"writer-emmett-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15952","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\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15952"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=15952"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=15952"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=15952"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=15952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}