{"id":23945,"date":"2015-08-21T09:40:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-21T12:40:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=23945"},"modified":"2022-07-05T12:30:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T15:30:53","slug":"one-year-to-go-best-and-worst-reporting-on-favelas-and-the-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=23945","title":{"rendered":"One Year To Go: Best and Worst Reporting on Favelas and the Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This is the latest contribution to our media watchdog series on the\u00a0Best and Worst International Reporting on Rio\u2019s favelas<\/a>, part of\u00a0RioOnWatch\u2019s ongoing conversation on the\u00a0media narrative<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0media portrayal<\/a>\u00a0surrounding favelas.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

One year from today, the 2016 Olympic Games will draw to a close and global news will be inundated\u00a0with evaluations of the event and its impacts. In the corresponding Olympic period this August, there has been a heightened media interest in Rio and the Games’ preparations.\u00a0This heightened attention has\u00a0produced\u00a0some truly stellar reporting on Rio’s favelas and the current context of the city, continuing the trend of increasingly productive portrayals of favelas we’ve observed\u00a0from mainstream English-language media since 2009<\/a>. At the same time, the single\u00a0event that drew the most coverage to Rio’s favelas was the death of a wanted trafficker, which shows there is still work to be done to reach more balanced coverage. Furthermore, the use of stigmatizing language that misrepresents Rio’s favelas\u00a0remains prevalent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here, we highlight some of the most nuanced and important articles from Rio from the last couple of months, and draw attention to examples of how favela reporting still needs to improve.<\/p>\n

Great Favela Reporting<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Guardian<\/i>\u2019s \u201cRio Olympics: View from the Favelas<\/strong>\u201d series<\/strong> gives two respected community journalists a global platform for their reflections. In the first article<\/a>, Michel Silva, the founder of Rocinha news outlet <\/span>Viva Rocinha<\/a><\/span><\/i>, critiques the Brazilian mainstream media\u2019s portrayal of Rocinha<\/a> as a \u201cdangerous and dirty place where residents lack an understanding of how the world works.\u201d The rest of his article disproves that portrayal, as he overviews Rocinha\u2019s history and demographics, summarizes what residents are proud of and what they lack, and calls for more \u201cdiscussion of public security policies with local people.”\u00a0In the second article<\/a>, Tha\u00eds Cavalcante, a journalist from\u00a0Mar\u00e9<\/a>, highlights last year\u2019s forced evictions in the Salsa and Merengue communities, mega-event impacts that\u00a0received no English-language mainstream media coverage. These community journalists bring depth and relevance that is rarely equaled by outsiders, and they disrupt stereotypes through their eloquent and passionate writing about their homes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recognizing the importance of community journalists, in June <\/span>Fusion<\/em> produced an in-depth video<\/a><\/strong> about Coletivo Papo Reto<\/a>, a media collective in Complexo Do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>. The video combines footage filmed by the collective and numerous interviews with collective participants, forefronting the residents\u2019 account of their work. In media, violence in favelas is frequently relayed through numbers of deaths, quotes from residents or officials about the severity of the situation, and imagery centered around men with guns and bullet holes in walls. Fusion<\/em>‘s portrayal of violence in favelas stands out, alongside The New York Times Magazine<\/i>‘s own article<\/a> on Papo Reto<\/strong>,\u00a0for its focus on the constructive actions of residents working to change narratives and end that violence. <\/span>There are times, of course, when the numbers and stark facts about violence need to be stressed. In May, Simon Romero and Taylor Barnes of The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0authored a <\/strong><\/span>critical account of Brazil’s police killings<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in recent years. The article placed Brazil’s shockingly high murder rates\u00a0and the public\u2019s acceptance of them in the context of the same data and resulting protests in the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fusion<\/a><\/p>\n

Stephanie Nolen\u2019s compelling feature on racial inequality in Brazil<\/a> for <\/strong>The Globe and Mail<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>exposes the extreme obstacles many favela residents, the majority of whom are Afro-Brazilian, face in combatting a rigid, yet little acknowledged, race-based hierarchy. The author lays out an inherent contradiction: Brazil\u2019s national identity is founded on a celebration of racial diversity\u00a0while\u00a0racial inequality is blatantly pervasive in day-to-day life. The article then dives deep into the lives of Brazilian families to demonstrate through complex stories how that contradiction is sustained. The rich historical context provided shows why Brazil has unique concepts of race, but the comparisons drawn to other countries, like the US, strengthen the article\u2019s significance.<\/p>\n

Great Olympics Reporting<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Of the many articles about Rio published on August 5, marking a year to\u00a0the beginning of the 2016 Olympic Games, few zoomed in explicitly on issues affecting favelas. Ana Terra Athayde\u2019s video\u00a0feature<\/a>\u00a0on the abandoned Morar Carioca favela urbanization\u00a0program<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was a rare exception. The footage showcases public investments in favela\u00a0Babil\u00f4nia<\/a>‘s sustainable, cost-effective projects: public space decks made from recycled materials, solar panels, and rainwater harvesting systems, among others. However, the video also features interviews with residents who say the project delivered fell far short of the projects promised, and experts lamenting the small-scale implementation of the program. With exactly one year to go until the Olympics begin, the fact that a key Olympic legacy project<\/a> had \u201cceased to be a priority to the municipal government, with no official explanation,\u201d was an essential message to highlight.<\/span><\/p>\n

The AP\u2019s investigation into water quality<\/a> in Olympics and Paralympic venues<\/strong>, published at the end of July, has had immense influence. Referenced in most\u00a0of the one-year-to-go articles published on August 5, the report provided the results of \u201cthe first independent comprehensive testing for both viruses and bacteria at the Olympic sites.\u201d Prior to this report, the City’s failure to clean Guanabara Bay<\/a> as promised had already received considerable attention, but the data collected by the AP sparked official responses from the IOC and the Rio Organizing Committee<\/a>.\u00a0The latter reaffirmed a commitment to pushing the government to clean the bay.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n

Finally, Jonathan Watt\u2019s compilation of perspectives from ten people living and working in Rio<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for The Guardian<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0deserves recognition. The article highlights the ongoing struggle of Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a> residents against evictions through the story of long-term activist Jane Nascimento<\/a>. Another activist featured is Marcello Mello, whose fight against the construction of the Olympics golf course on environmentally protected land<\/a> has received surprisingly little English language coverage. Watts also produced an excellent profile of Brazilian property tycoon Carlos Carvalho<\/a><\/strong>, whose vision for a city “of the elite, of good taste” was a shockingly candid insight into Olympic real estate developments in Barra da Tijuca<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

How Favela Reporting Needs Improvement<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Despite dramatic\u00a0improvements from previous reporting<\/a>, the tendency for international journalists to describe favelas with inaccurate language remains. One article from The Independent<\/em><\/a><\/strong> on August 4 makes a fundamental point:\u00a0the realities of favela residents\u00a0\u201cwill be lost amid the talk of qualifying times, stadium deadlines, water quality and hotel prices.\u201d The majority of the article contains strong critical evidence of corruption and failed legacy promises. However, the author writes: \u201cScattered all around are another 600 slums housing 1.3 million people in huts amid sewage and sorrow.\u201d This line makes Rio\u2019s diverse favelas\u2014pacified and unpacified, old and new, those with land titles and brick houses and those that contain shacks\u2014sound all exactly the same: impoverished, miserable, and temporary. Inexplicably, the author states that \u201cyou would not dare ask those in Vasco (a favela) about what the Games will mean to them.\u201d Why not ask?<\/a> Why not seek out opinions of the Games from those most affected by them? Yet the article’s only quote from a favela resident discusses how drug dealers bury bodies under the soccer pitch.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Demolished<\/a><\/p>\n

Even a\u00a0<\/span>New Zealand Herald<\/em> article<\/a><\/strong> that derides the mainstream media\u2019s affinity for \u201cpoverty porn\u201d<\/strong>\u2014\u201dwhere the plight of the poor is packaged up for the entertainment of the not-poor\u201d\u2014is guilty of misrepresenting Rio\u2019s favelas in between its important critiques. The author describes Rocinha<\/a> as \u201ca melting pot of the poor and needy…a world of youth gangs, violent crime and drug dealing…a no-go zone for outsiders.\u201d In fact, Rocinha has a booming local tourism industry and is home to parts of the \u201cburgeoning middle class\u201d the author later mentions. Gangs, crime and drugs are a part of Rocinha\u2019s world, but so are culture<\/a>, entrepreneurship<\/a>, and commitment to sustainability<\/a>. In criticizing the media for focusing on Brazil\u2019s poverty over its less \u201csexy\u201d successes, the author falls into the same trap<\/a>\u00a0for Rio\u2019s favelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another\u00a0article, from Australia\u2019s Herald Sun<\/em><\/a><\/strong>, gives a fair and important overview of competing\u00a0resident perspectives from Vila Aut\u00f3dromo. The author provides what appears to be a balanced description of the community: \u201cVila Aut\u00f3dromo had the dirt roads, sometimes shaky, amateur housebuilding, and open sewers typical of favelas, but none of the usual drug-fueled violence, winning a reputation as a laid-back place for working class people to raise families.\u201d The problem with this description is what\u2019s missing\u2014the City paved the roads<\/a> of neighboring community Asa Branca<\/a>, but many Vila Aut\u00f3dromo residents believe the City has intentionally not paved their streets in order to keep the neighborhood appearing temporary, despite holding titles for two decades. What may have appeared to be \u201copen sewers\u201d were likely just puddled water, as the community built a simple sewage system itself. And, before their brutal eviction<\/a> began, the vast majority of\u00a0homes\u00a0in Vila Aut\u00f3dromo were completed and solid, with only a small fraction ‘shaky or amateur, and many were\u00a080m2, larger than homes in the vast majority of favelas.<\/span><\/p>\n

During this one-year-to-go period, the favela story that drew the most international attention was the killing of wanted trafficker \u201cPlayboy\u201d on August 8. The substantial attention to a violent event that\u00a0is<\/span>\u00a0unlikely to change much<\/a> about Rio\u2019s entrenched drug trafficking system is in itself unfortunate. The Telegraph<\/em>\u2019s coverage<\/a> mentions that Playboy had called \u201cfor a ceasefire between gangs to stop bullets from hitting innocent members of the public,\u201d despite not wanting to end the \u201cblood war.\u201d Coverage by Australia’s\u00a0The Daily Telelgraph<\/em><\/a>\u00a0placed the druglord\u2019s death in the context of police killings in Rio, and mentioned that \u201crelatives of Playboy claim he was trying to surrender and was killed in cold blood.\u201d <\/span>The Telegraph <\/span><\/i>and AFP<\/em> reports<\/a> both excluded this context and perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n

How\u00a0Olympics Reporting Needs Improvement<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Among the one-year-to-go articles, there is an overwhelming focus on the question of whether Rio will be ready to host the 2016\u00a0Olympic Games a year from now. One headline from <\/span>The Daily Telegraph <\/span><\/i>read, \u201cThe race is on to have Rio ready for the Olympics<\/a>,\u201d while a <\/span>Miami Herald <\/span><\/i>headline stated: \u201cWith Summer Olympics a year away, Brazil wonders if it\u2019s ready<\/a>.\u201d A Globe and Mail<\/em> article<\/a> asks more subtly within the text: \u201cWill it all be ready?\u201d Individually, these are thoughtful articles that are skeptical of Olympic legacy projects and ask important questions about the Games\u2019 costs. Yet a collective focus on the question of whether the Olympics will be logistically ready by next August risks setting a low bar for success. As mega-events researcher\u00a0<\/span>Christopher Gaffney noted<\/a>,<\/span>\u00a0the dominant media narrative that Brazil\u2019s World Cup preparations would not be ready in time allowed FIFA and Brazilian organizers to claim the event was a success when infrastructure was (mostly) ready in time, regardless of the tournament\u2019s long-term impacts. Key to holding the 2016 Rio Olympics accountable will be media coverage that emphasizes the tougher questions of costs and impacts on citizens<\/a> over the easier question of whether the Games infrastructure\u00a0will be ready.<\/span><\/p>\n

Check out past\u00a0articles looking at the Media Portrayal\u00a0of Favelas here<\/a>. And download\u00a0our full 2009-2014 longitudinal “Favelas in the Media” study here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This is the latest contribution to our media watchdog series on the\u00a0Best and Worst International Reporting on Rio\u2019s favelas, part of\u00a0RioOnWatch\u2019s ongoing conversation on the\u00a0media narrative\u00a0and\u00a0media portrayal\u00a0surrounding favelas. One year from […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":23968,"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":[1294,1736,1288,1271,1282],"tags":[1361,1606,1653,280,32,474,11,531,1074,23,1900,1366,197,5,17,12,2267,2634,1910,453,4,1385],"writer":[921],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-1736","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-favelaqualities","11":"category-research-analysis","12":"tag-endfavelastigma","13":"tag-coletivo-papo-reto","14":"tag-community-media","15":"tag-complexo-da-mare","16":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","17":"tag-environment","18":"tag-forced-evictions","19":"tag-guanabara-bay","20":"tag-international-reporting","21":"tag-mass-media","22":"tag-media-narrative","23":"tag-analyzing-media-portrayal-of-favelas","24":"tag-morro-da-babilonia","25":"tag-olympics","26":"tag-police-brutality","27":"tag-rocinha","28":"tag-salsa-e-merengue","29":"tag-series","30":"tag-series-best-worst-reporting","31":"tag-stigma","32":"tag-vila-autodromo","33":"tag-violence","34":"writer-rioonwatch"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23945","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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23945"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=23945"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=23945"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=23945"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=23945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}