- «Policarpo asked Charley Waterfall to surveil federal legislator Jovair Arantes
- «How Policarpo quashed the publication of articles unfriendly to Waterfall
- «How the animal game banker boasted of his influence over Policarpo»
Friday, I normally go out for a stroll — buying a Dona Flor cigar and a copy of Carta Capital magazine, then finding a comfortable bench in the shade where I can enjoy them in peace. I usually buy a second weekly as well — but not a third, these things are way expensive — from among the titles published by Globo and Editora Três. I also read Abril’s Exame business title, which recalls Institutional Investor.
I have yet to get out of doors today, however. I am watching the track relays — how lucky is my boyhood friend Sieg Lindstrom, who covers the track for Track & Field News — and otherwise goofing off.
But I did get a chance to read the following blog entry by Leandro Fortes, the magazine’s veteran investigative reporter.
Its title recalls the novel O Triste Fim de — the unhappy end of — Policarpo Quaresmo, by Lima Barreto. I translate, draft-quality, and with the caveat that I have not read the coverage in detail. Damned bloggers, always going off half-cocked.
This week’s Carta Capital brings you the story behind the story. Its cover story is the latest chapter of a journalistic tragedy that began when the Abril group, after the election of Lula in 2002, determined that Veja magazine would be transformed into an ideological pamphlet of the Brazilian extreme right.
Abandoning journalism and journalistic ethics, the magazine devoted itself to banditry and weekly exercises in intellectual dishonesty. The results of this process you can read about in this week’s Carta Capital: The magazine was a cornerstone of the Charley Waterfall criminal organization.
Another cornerstone of the scheme was ex-Senator Demostenes Torres [DEM-Goiás].
Without Abril’s flagship newsweekly, there could not have been a Charley Waterfall. Without Charley Waterfall, Veja could not have become the prodigious libel machine that it is, chock full of advertising — including official government advertising.
This may be an exaggeration. Judging from the wiretap transcripts dealing with journalists, Mr. Waterfall had a well-stocked stable of collaborators among opinion columnists and news reporters. The reference to official advertising rebuts the charge that Carta Capital is subsidized by a government that it supports. Studies are cited to show that advertising buys have not punished the big national weeklies. (more…)
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