The Folha de S. Paulo shrieks: “The world financial system is on the brink of a meltdown, says FMI!”
In the late afternoon, at 5:47 pm, after Treasury ministry Mantega and Central Bank president Meirelles had announced the anticrisis package, the blog Radar Online, of Veja magazine, announced that the major Brazilian banks had suspended “any and all personal loans or financing.”
The Observatório da Imprensa’s Luciano Martins Costa argues that Veja magazine — “crisis is our brand!” — screamed “fire” in a crowded theater the other day.
The shrieking hysteria of the Folha de S. Paulo last week (above) speaks for itself. Martins:
Todo jornalista aprende na faculdade de comunicação ou no dia-a-dia das boas redações que, em momentos de crise, os títulos e enunciados das reportagens e artigos devem ser produzidos com cautela extremada.
Every journalist learns, whether in college or in the day-to-day of a good news organization, that in moments of crisis, headlines and call-outs have to be crafted with extreme care.
O cuidado se deve à responsabilidade ética da imprensa de evitar o pânico coletivo e o estado que costumava ser chamado de “comoção social”.
This care is due to the ethical responsibility the press has to avoid collective panic and the state of what used to be called “social upheaval.”
The Brazilian yellow press — Veja is a particularly egregious example, but not the only one — thrives on “moral panic.” Seems to see it as its solemn duty to cry wolf at every turn in an attempt to convince you that the MST want to barbecue your forcibly aborted white babies. Seriously.
Então, para evitar a tal “comoção social”, o jornalismo se obriga a trabalhar a notícia de modo a esclarecer as situações ambíguas que afetam a opinião do público e não contribuir para atos coletivos de irracionalidade.
In other to avoid said “social upheaval,” then, journalism is obliged to report the news in such a way as to shed light on ambiguous situations affecting public opinion and not to contribute to collective acts of irrationality.
Such as the invasion of Iraq on the (warrantless) argument that there were vast stockpiles of planet-killing weapons of hot, smoking mass death scattered all over the landscape, like Condi and Colin said.
Pois na segunda-feira alguns sites jornalísticos beiraram a irresponsabilidade.
On Monday (October 6), some Brazilian journalism Web sites bordered on irresponsibility.
No final da tarde, às 17h47, depois que o ministro da Fazenda Guido Mantega e o presidente do Banco Central, Henrique Meirelles, haviam anunciado o pacote de recursos contra a crise, o blog Radar Online, da revista Veja, anunciou que os grandes bancos brasileiros haviam suspendido “toda e qualquer operação de crédito pessoal ou financiamento”.
In the late afternoon, at 5:47 pm, after Treasury ministry Mantega and Central Bank president Meirelles had announced the anticrisis package, the blog Radar Online, of Veja magazine, announced that the the major Brazilian banks had suspended “any and all personal loan or financing.”
Logo abaixo, a nota esclarecia que a razão não era a falta de liquidez, mas a falta de definição sobre quanto cobrar de juros.
Immediately below, the note explained that the reason was not a lack of liquidity, but uncertainty over how much interest to charge.
Outra notinha, logo abaixo, informava que o Banco Panamericano havia deixado de operar com crédito consignado desde a semana anterior (ver aqui).
Another brief item, just below that, informed that the Banco Panamericano had stopped issuing secured loans a week prior (click here).
Informação descuidada
Careless information
Às 19h58, a seção de últimas notícias do UOL reproduzia a nota do Radar Online, com o título: “Bancos suspendem crédito pessoal e financiamento, diz Lauro Jardim, na Veja Online” (ver aqui). Pouco depois, às 20h24, o site da própria Editora Abril anunciava no título: “Grandes bancos suspendem empréstimos”.
At 5:58 p.m., the news section on the UOL Internet portal reproduced the Radar Online report with the headline, “Banks suspend personal loans and finance, says Lauro Jardim of Radar Online.” … No long after, at 6:24 p.m., the Web site of Editora Abril announced in a headline, “Major banks suspend loans.”
A notícia ainda foi atualizada às 22h18 com o mesmo teor, ou seja, os editores tiveram tempo suficiente para refletir sobre os efeitos possíveis de sua escolha.
The note was updated at 8:18 p.m. with the same content. That is to say, the editors had plenty of time to reflect on the possible effects of their choice.
E continuaram no tom alarmista.
And they opted to continue to take an alarmist tone.
What would have been better? “Major banks await rates info before issuing new loans?”
Se o fato tivesse sido apresentado dessa forma no horário de funcionamento dos bancos, a reação dos correntistas poderia ser desastrosa.
If this news had been presented in this way during banking hours, the reaction of depositors might have been disastrous.
Numa primeira olhada, sem qualquer dúvida muitos leitores tenderiam a interpretar a notícia como a chegada da crise às suas contas bancárias.
At first glance, there is no doubt that a number of readers would tend to interpret the news as a crisis affecting their bank accounts.
Os riscos da informação composta com tão pouco cuidado eram evidentes.
The risks of reporting composed with such carelessness are obvious.
Tão evidentes que fica difícil imaginar que se tratou apenas de irresponsabilidade.
So obvious that it is hard to imagine that this was just a case of carelessness.
Veja is an endless font of gabbling bullshit, on purpose, enough said.
It’s the old TV news trick.
“Can a common ingredient of chicken soup kill you dead? Tune in at 11!”
You tune in at 11 to find out that the answer is, “No, not really.” If you get sick of being jerked around, you stop tuning in. (This is why I change the channel whenever I see or hear Wolf Blitzer, or even have a sixth sense he is about to appear on screen or be mentioned.)
It does seem fair to ask, however: Did anyone actually have the panicked reaction that Mr. Costas worried about?
On October 12, TV Globo ran a report in which “experts” say the tightening of credit — really, a tightening of criteria for offering loans (Are you an unemployed heroin addict? No? Good!) — is “nothing to panic about.”
During an outbreak of urban yellow fever earlier this year, in which Rio was especially affected, more people died from overdosing on the vaccine than from the disease. Globo is actually being sued by some Nader’s Raiders types who blame its alarmist (and it was that) coverage for the deaths.
Escândalo abafado
Scandal hushed up
Teve pouca repercussão o escândalo financeiro envolvendo a empresa Sadia.
The financial scandal involving Sadia has received little notice.
Na terça-feira (7/10) os jornais noticiam a volta do ex-ministro Luiz Fernando Furlan à presidência da companhia, que teve perdas de 760 milhões de reais por conta de operações de alto risco e supostamente ilegais.
On October 7, the papers reported the return of ex-minister Furlan as chairman of the board of the company that lost R$760m in high-risk, allegedly illegal transactions.
Illegal in the eyes of the Brazilian version of the SEC because contrary to the stated investment policy of the company in its representations in its share prospectus, I think.
Interessante notar que apenas a Gazeta Mercantil trata o assunto como “escândalo financeiro”.
Interesting to note that only the Gazeta Mercantil treated the topic as a “financial scandal.”
That’s because the Gazeta, a special-interest business daily, is widely read by investors likely to be scandalized when lied to about what their money is being used for.
So who was the Brazilian Nick Leeson, anyway? His name was mentioned by a few sources as he was being fired, but no one seems to be doing a TV movie of the week on the guy.
Pela leitura dos jornais em geral, o público é levado a acreditar que a empresa foi vítima da crise financeira global e que o presidente e o conselho de administração não sabiam das operações que provocaram o rombo no caixa e a perda de valor das ações.
Reading the general-interest papers, however, the public is led to believe the company was the victim of the global financial crisis and that the chairman and the board did not know about the transactions that provoked the hemorrhage of cash and the abrupt fall of the company’s stock price.
Seria resultado da alta qualificação da assessoria de imprensa da Sadia, ou omissão dos jornais?
Is this because Sadia’s PR people are so good at their jobs or because the press are so lousy at theirs?
And speaking of irrational exuberance, from the New York Post today, a photo of some unidentified person riding that love rollercoaster as the Dow index recovers:
Filed under: Brazil, Financial Services, Journalism, Media
