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 One minute, the president-candidate Lula chastises the PT "nut cases." Hours before, he squealed against the "press partisanship" just because it investigates the mess from those same nut cases. Who is a nut case? What's the purpose of this madness climate?
In a speech the president-candidate presents himself as the reincarnation of a betrayed Jesus Christ, in another he proclaims that no charge [from the press] will prevent him from winning in the first round. But the charges are being made exactly against those who betrayed His Excellency... Coherence be damned: the country became a crazy stand where irrationality and irresponsibility, in frenetic rhythm, promote one of the most unfortunate electoral free-for-all shows of all times. Is this a tactic to confound opponents? Is it an acute schizophrenia attack? Or is it just demagoguery? Whatever the diagnosis, what we cannot accept is the installation of a delirious climate less than a week before that day in which should reign ponderation and good-sense. Democracy can't be threatened (or, in this case, one of their stays) on the eve of elections. Most of all when one of the protagonists, besides being candidate, is also the President of the Republic - supreme judge, commander in chief of the Armed forces, chief of the government and of the nation, in charge of looking after the tranquility of the political process and the institutional harmony. Rendered Services Over a month ago, when the campaign was lukewarm, boring and promising an easy victory for president Lula, the government, in connection with what remained of the ruling party, decided to strong-arm the press. They started to leak documents on the program for a second mandate with explicit references to the need to "democratize communication". It was clear the intention of avoiding surprises and aborting the emergence of any explosive dossier able to alter the upward trend in the final lap of the dispute. The explosive dossier ended up exploding in the government's and the ruling party's hands two weeks before the election. For incompetence, cold feet or despair they activated the wrong connection. A victory that was certain blew up. Instead of denouncing the candidate José Serra from the Senate rostrum, his challenger Aloízio Mercadante summoned the lumpen press to do the dirty little work. He didn't want to dirty his hands, he bribed an almost broke communication businessman to throw mud into the fan. Weekly newsmagazine Isto É gave political status to yellow journalism. The magazine enters journalism history as a suicide-vehicle, inattentive to its self demoralization, just intent on complying with the arrangement to demoralize the honcho's opponent. And, then, pocket a big chunk of money under the guise of publicity contracts with some state-run company. There are publications that die gloriously, others however prefer to cower. President Lula is forgetting his debt to the press. He went all the way - from the time he was a union leader to the presidential palace in Brasília - pushed and backed up by the press. And it was the weekly press, orchestrated by general Golbery do Couto e Silva, who put in the cover of several issues that unknown bearded, union leader who did not obey the command from the communists who operated within then MDB (Brazilian Democratic Movement). Without the press Lula would not have survived through the 2002 elections, and if it weren't for this press always nice and supporter of his charms, the "Lula peace and love" image would not have stuck among those in the middle class. It's important to note that after the president's inauguration in 2002 the press did not submit any invoice for rendered services. Neither could it since it had reflected with reasonable equidistance the public opinion trends. Statement by House representative Paulo Delgado, from the Minas Gerais PT, reported by Globo's journalist Maiá Menezes: "We are spitting on the rotary press we ate. The PT is a product of the press. The press always magnified our voice and our fight. The democratic coverage asks more from the winner. Always has done. The PT knows that. This is a free press's duty. We should be happy to have won the elections. We do not need to triumph over the freedom of the press and opinion." Checked Back and Questioned The idea of rescuing needy media companies through a BNDES's (National Bank for Economic and Social Development)' credit line came from José Dirceu, at the time the presidency's chief of staff, even before the president's inauguration. The plan became unviable precisely because the communication companies were forced to recognize that they could not keep this kind of relationship with the public power. The invoice was issued by the government when it caved in to the nut cases and forced the creation of the Journalism Federal Board. The mensalão (big monthly allowance) scandal, although exposed by the media, was not created by it: it was produced in the government's basements and amplified thanks to the contradictions within the government's alliance. The media could not stay away or ignore the scandal, but it didn't let itself to be seduced by any of their nut cases. The conspiratorial theories (like the one on the Cuba dollars produced in the Veja laboratories) did not prosper thanks to the skepticism of the media itself. The Vedoin-Isto É dossier was scheduled to detonate when it would be impossible to disavow it. The fury of their mentors, executioners and beneficiaries originates exactly from the impossibility of reverting its revelations and preventing its unfolding, even though the Federal Police has cooled it investigative impulse. To hold the press under suspicion, as the government and the ruling party are doing lately, is a dangerous tactic because it schedules for the day after (October 2 or 30) a showdown that may exacerbate the already-visible threats of rupture. The country can stand any bump in the exchange rate, in the oil price, in the resignation of a president (as it happened with Collor de Mello). But the country won't stand a political hurricane. A few sorcerer's apprentices and other nut cases tried in the past to provoke a division in the country. And they brought forth a tragedy. The press is not an oracle, but a power that should be checked back and questioned. Always. By all. The attempt to place it under suspicion because it has been being able to show the rogueries of today's nut cases favors the weed and sows hostilities. This is a plague for which we don't have antidotes and vaccines.
Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR - Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observatório da Imprensa. You can reach him by email at
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. Translated from the Portuguese by Arlindo Silva.
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