{"id":28358,"date":"2016-04-26T11:40:38","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T14:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=28358"},"modified":"2018-01-15T13:11:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T16:11:11","slug":"a-coup-by-the-press-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=28358","title":{"rendered":"Impeachment: A Coup by the Press [OPINION]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This article by Juliana Portella is one of a\u00a0series of five opinion pieces on the impeachment by community reporters<\/a>\u00a0published this week on RioOnWatch.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Ju, as Juliana prefers to be called, is a 25-year-old journalist, editor and social media communicator. Juliana is also a teacher and dedicates herself to giving\u00a0classes to youth for university entrance exams in a community at the antepenultimate station on the Japeri train line, Queimados. Suburban, but a citizen of the world, during\u00a0her roaming she remains fixed\u00a0on an idea: to build\u00a0a more just and humane world. \u201cWhat I am is always under construction,\u201d she says.<\/em><\/p>\n

The current political scene is delicate. Of what we know, one thing is certain: nothing would have reached the dimension it has without the structural role of the means of mass communications<\/a>. Those who think the press only covers the facts are deceiving themselves.<\/p>\n

We should\u00a0always reflect on the role\u00a0of the media<\/a>. But for us to understand what is classified as journalism, it is important to analyze in what form it is conceived and the ideological horizon it represents. It’s also\u00a0very important to reflect on what is news, what is journalistic coverage and the ways in which it is\u00a0produced.<\/p>\n

The media has held\u00a0its position in society since primordial times. The intention of forming\u00a0public opinion is one of the most marked\u00a0objectives of communication and everyone knows this. Phrases are repeated exhaustively; all sides of a story are made invisible; framing, words, and statements make the discussion\u00a0lose its neutrality.<\/p>\n

There are times we watch the Globo Network<\/a> propagate the current\u00a0administration of President Dilma Rousseff as a heavy burden and the\u00a0\u201cworst government of all time.\u201d It is a brazen and convincing narrative that is mobilizing an expressive part of the Brazilian population to request the\u00a0impeachment of a government that was democratically elected. It’s a media\u00a0stunt to embarrasses any journalism professional<\/a>. A performance of authoritarian partnership with a judicial system that rises above the constitution.<\/p>\n

Articles\u00a0proclaim that \u201cthe government is circled,\u201d and \u201cDilma is not going to cope with the pressure.\u201d They have even referred to Dilma as the \u201cex-president.\u201d Reporters and commentators have been taking turns to exalt the protests of the white elite in order to\u00a0give\u00a0the acts a decisive weight over the politics of the country. Television viewers even lost\u00a0out on the Sunday afternoon film for live impeachment coverage. The TV show\u00a0Faust\u00e3o had live coverage of the demonstrations. This is\u00a0serious!<\/p>\n

In his book “Concepts in Journalism<\/a>,” Michael\u00a0Kunczik approaches very important questions in relation to these recent days. The vulnerability of journalistic work, our time’s obsession with the latest news, the professional culture of journalists, and the organization of\u00a0work and its relation to\u00a0social aspects. How does a\u00a0journalist write about a situation or object that he or she is totally unfamiliar with, and how does he or she write when the object is known?<\/p>\n

\u201cAn objective and neutral journalism passively distances itself from the events it discusses. The opposite is an actively compromised, participatory and socially engaged journalism which promotes causes. In reality these two normative images are not mutually exclusive. A journalist can feel equally compromised by an objective and neutral report and by social obligation\u2026,\u201d Kunczik explains.<\/p>\n

With the possibility of adopting only one of the two presented behaviors, the function of the journalist presented\u00a0by the author as a \u201cdefender\u201d is conceived as the support for social causes and his or her\u00a0own interests. This side of journalism practice represents, therefore, an attempt to change\u00a0the social structure in which we live. So, would the journalistic text, worked in this manner, have more power of persuasion over the reader?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s evident that a discourse and a specific context effectively reaches the public. The great mission of the means of mass communication is the forming\u00a0of public opinion. What this tells us is “that which is in Chico is also in Francisco” [a proverb meaning that which is found in the boy is also found in the father].\u00a0If Facebook today has more than 1.4 billion users worldwide\u00a0and 80% of the Brazilian population is connected, what are we waiting for?<\/p>\n

It is also logical to think that after 21\u00a0years of military dictatorship<\/a>\u00a0(1964-1985), the Brazilian press assumed a new role. It came\u00a0to be understood as a\u00a0central agent in the construction of citizenship<\/a> and also democracy<\/a>. In a country that until then was marked by censorship, the mark of liberty in the late 1980s would justly be a relief and a conquest of a fundamental right, the freedom of the press.<\/p>\n

This marked\u00a0fact in history makes us understand, therefore, that visibility is an essential condition for citizenship, but it also justifies how journalism in Brazil is seen as a tool of public utility<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What to do then with this assembled scene, this carousel that is\u00a0the production and movement of information, practices and attitudes on\u00a0TV? If the press can act like a political party, let them say their factoids during the national evening news.\u00a0We will attack on social media<\/a>\u00a0during the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas This article by Juliana Portella is one of a\u00a0series of five opinion pieces on the impeachment by community reporters\u00a0published this week on RioOnWatch. Ju, as Juliana prefers to be called, is […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":28362,"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":[1288,1328,1290,1331,328],"tags":[460,1303,1075,479,2030,390,2012,23,1900,122,1781,2634,2011,796],"writer":[1481],"translator":[407],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-by-community-contributors","9":"category-civilsociety","10":"category-opinion-2","11":"category-understanding-rio","12":"tag-baixada-fluminense","13":"tag-communication-rights","14":"tag-critique","15":"tag-democracy","16":"tag-freedom-of-expression","17":"tag-globo","18":"tag-impeachment","19":"tag-mass-media","20":"tag-media-narrative","21":"tag-nova-iguacu","22":"tag-opinion-2","23":"tag-series","24":"tag-series-impeachment","25":"tag-social-media","26":"writer-juliana-portella","27":"translator-elizabeth-gladding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28358","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=28358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28358"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=28358"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=28358"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=28358"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=28358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}