Some ponderations

Ramona Rodriguez, cuban doctor asked for
political refuge in Brazil this week

There are two things that upset me about the media and social media coverage in Brazil. On the one hand, mainstream media often is too critical and lacks a bit of context on the government decision. This, on the other hand, leads people on social media to call the whole media conservatives and fuel protesters to physically harm journalist (as this week was seen with the TV Bandeirantes cameraman hit by a bomb).

Over the past two weeks I've seen examples on both sides of this sort of thing. Two weeks ago, TV show Manhattan Connection interviewed Luiza Trajano, owner of one of the biggest store chains in Brazil, Magazine Luiza. One of the journalists, Diogo Mainardi, speaking directly from Italy where he now lives, was saying Ms. Trajano that her sector was living a crisis. She repeatedly said that was not the case, but he insisted and then she showed him the actual numbers, that were showing an increase in sales at the end of last year. 

The stress of negative points on Business journalism is something the Brazilian press does more often than we think. This is why the Central Bank disregarded the press criticism when it first cut down the interest rates. At that time it was the right thing to do, and it worked. Maybe if the press weren't so over critic, the government would listen to it more often, and maybe it would avoid the current stagflation we are facing. 

The other example occurred this week. When a great set of bad news for the government rightfully gained the newspapers. Let’s start from the beginning. A blackout (I believe the third of its kind), reached most of the country on Tuesday followed by the request for political refugee from a Cuban doctor, part of the government program (one of the many inspired by Hugo Chávez, due to its political profits in terms of votes) Mais Médicos (more doctors), and the arrest of Henrique Pizzolato, former executive of Banco do Brazil and member of the Workers Party in Italy. Immediately, bloggers and government supporters went out to say that the blackout was an isolated event (it always is), that the cuban doctor is just one among 7,400 others who are doing their jobs and so on.  It's sad to see that the same flaws are repeating, and that apparently they are not seen as a problem to some supporters of the government. 

This pretty much resumes the events of the past two weeks, I wish I could have written in more depth of all of them, but time is short in this year. Hopefully from now on the weekly posting will continue.