“Dantas Judge Is Alien to Our Tupi Way of Life”: Globo

FAUSTO'S PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Época's profile of the Dantas judge suggests that he is an oddball who holds views of life, the universe, justice, democracy and everything that are alien to the mainstream of Brazilian civilization. Sleazy hit piece? An avalanche of online readers apparently thought so. Deliberately distorted photo: Epoca.com.br

Luis Nassif reflects on a notable backlash by online readers against a profile by Época magazine (Globo) of Brazilian federal judge Fausto de Sanctis.

The judge, who will rule on the charges against Opportunity founding partner Daniel Valente “The Quiet Brazilian” Dantas, has been repeatedly accused in the press recently of being Nazi-inspired. See

• The Authoritarian Temptation of Dr. Fausto: “Dantas Judge Is Nazi-Inspired”
• Dantas Judge: “Dr. Fausto Is Not a Nazi”

The Época piece does appear to be a continuation of that character-assassination campaign. It begins

Aos 44 anos, separado, com fama de vaidoso, o juiz Fausto De Sanctis tem alguns traços de comportamento que o diferenciam da maioria das pessoas.

At 44 years of age, separated, with a reputation for vanity, Judge De Sanctis has some behavioral characteristics that make him different from the average person.

If I get a chance, I will translate the Época profile for you. It tends to pound heavily on the notion that the judge personally and his notions of justice are unorthodox, peculiar, alien, un-Brazilian, and so on and so forth.

I also had the impression it was a sleazy piece of carefully contrived character assassination dressed up as an inane People magazine-style profile. It repeats the “Fausto is a Nazi” meme. It cites only critics of the judge, and none of his defenders (or neutral parties).

Nassif, meanwhile, notes that the magazine’s Web site — recently opened to comments as the magazine merges operations with Globo’s Web portal, G1 — was deluged with infuriated responses from readers, almost unanimously excoriating the magazine and defending the judge:

A rebelião dos leitores da Época com a reportagem sobre De Sanctis caminha para se tornar um case na Internet. Os leitores de Época a vêem como uma espécie de antídoto para Veja. Com a linha editorial dos produtos da Globo entorpecida pelo continuado patrulhamento ideológico de Ali Kamel, no entanto, a revista não ousou ocupar esse espaço anti-Veja.

The rebellion of Época‘s online readers against the piece on De Sanctis is fast becoming one for the books. Época‘s readers tend to see it as a sort of antidote for Veja, but with the editorial line of Globo publications poisoned by close, continuous ideological oversight by [Globo Journalism Central executive director] Ali Kamel, the magazine does not dare try to occupy this “anti-Veja” role.

On Ali Kamel as a gabbling, factually-challenged, logic-chopping ideological propagandist, see

• “Globo Gabbles on Communist Indoctrination Textbook Plague!”

I find Época almost completely unreadable, and Época Negócios, its companion business weekly is one of the most egregious fonts of gibbering nonsense I have ever read.

(Abril’s business weekly Exame can actually be a somewhat useful read, if boiled thoroughly first — proving that pockets of intelligent life do exist at the publishing house.)

A matéria colocou cacos ironizando o juiz. A rebelião dos leitores foi ampla, de uma virulência desproporcional ao teor da matéria, uma enchente de leitores indignados que, em pouco tempo, lotaram a seção de comentários da revista armados da chamada ira santa. Alguns hackers se valeram da falta de filtros da revista para direcionar as mensagens ou para a Carta Capital ou para a série O Caso de Veja.

The article introduced elements designed to mock the judge. The revolt on the part of readers was ample, their anger disproportional to the contents of the article, a veritable flood of indignant readers who in short order filled the comments section of the magazine with what might be called holy wrath. A few hackers took advantage of the Web site’s lack of filters to redirect the messages either to CartaCapital magazine or to my series on Veja magazine.

Valor: Corruption in Brazil

Top of the stack: Valor's weekend supplement with an illuminating report on corruption in Brazil

Corrupção cresce e é muito grave:

“Corruption is on the rise and is very serious. This is the perception of most Brazilians, acccording to a Vox Populi/Federal University of Minas Gerais opinion poll. At the same same, three-quarters of Brazilians believe it is not corrupt acts that have increased, but the investigation of corruption cases that were previously hidden.”

Only 17% of Brazilians polled believe, as Roberto Mangabeira Unger of Harvard Law School wrote in 2005 in the Folha de S. Paulo, that the current government of Brazil is the most corrupt in its history.

Unger later apologized, saying that he had made the mistake of reading what he read in Brazilian newspapers. On which see also

• Brazilian News Media Garbles Survey Data on the Question, “Does Your News Media Report Honestly and Accurately?”

And the New York Times as well, I would imagine: its correspondent here, Larry “Lunching With The Lads From The Embassy” Rohter, compared the current president to Nixon (and himself to Woodstein, implicitly) in a dramatic histrionic farewell interview with the Estado de S. Paulo last year. See

• Mangabeira Unger Apologizes; Long-Term Deep Thinker Says He Rushed to Judgment

This means that an overwhelming majority of Brazilians are not confused by the difference between real incidence and the reported incidence of a type of criminal behavior that often involves paying the person responsible for reporting it not to report it.

Which is pretty remarkable, considering that common wisdom still seems to view Brazilian public opinion as a zombie slave to the boob tube. See also

• Headline Bias, Corruption, and the News Media: From Perception to Reality

In its weekend magazine, EU& — eu, hein? — the Valor business daily runs one of the best editorial packages I have read in the Brazilian press in several years: a “corruption dossier” (above) by Maria Cristina Fernandes, filed from Belo Horizonte.

Three excellent pieces:

1. The Vox Pop/UFMG polling results
2. “Book with 62 articles debates the DNA of corruption in Brazil”
3. “The weakness of international indices that orient anticorruption policy.”

On (3), and the waning credibility of multilateral organizations on this subject, see also

• Wolfowitz Lied About Integrity Appointment
• “Brazilian Corruption Deepens”: World Bank
• Corruption in Brazil: Perception as Reality

Some excerpts, in translation, when I get time: