176 original article | artigo original
Dilma Rousseff’s Third Round O terceiro turno de Dilma Rousseff
João Feres Júnior1, Luna de Oliveira Sassara2
ABSTRACT In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the news media coverage of President Dilma Rousseff in the newspapers ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘O Globo’ and ‘O Estado de São Paulo’ became increasingly negative after her victory in the 2014 elections. We also compare her coverage with that of senator Aécio Neves, her main opponent in the last election, president of PSDB and leader of the opposition, who has been accused of corruption several times after the election. The test clearly shows that the Brazilian media is highly politicized. We conclude the article by discussing the importance of the media for the future of democracy in Brazil.
KEYWORDS Democracy. Press. Brazil. Politics.
RESUMO Neste artigo, testamos a hipótese de que a cobertura recebida pela presidente Dilma Rousseff nos jornais ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘O Globo’ e ‘O Estado de São Paulo’ tornou-se ainda mais negativa após sua vitória eleitoral em outubro de 2014. Também comparamos a cobertura de Dilma àquela dedicada a Aécio Neves, seu principal adversário e líder da oposição, alvo de inúmeras denúncias de corrupção no período pós-eleitoral. O teste não deixa dúvidas acerca do caráter altamente politizado da mídia brasileira. Concluímos refletindo sobre a importância da mídia para o futuro da democracia no Brasil.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE Democracia. Imprensa. Brasil. Política.
1 Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Uerj), Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Políticos (Iesp) – Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brasil. [email protected]
2 Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (Unirio) – Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brasil. [email protected]
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Art. 77. The election of the President and manchetometro.com.br), which was aimed Vice-President of the Republic shall take at observing the daily press coverage of place simultaneously, on the first Sunday of the main candidates and parties involved October, in the first round, and on the last in Brazil’s presidential dispute by the main Sunday of October, in the second round, as Brazilian media, namely the newspapers the case may be, of the year preceding the ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘O Globo’ and ‘O Estado one in which the current presidential term de São Paulo’ (‘Estadão’), and the TV news of office ends. program called Jornal Nacional1. Constitution of the Federative Republic The majority of the studies on media and of Brazil, 1988 politics conducted in the Brazilian academy are concentrated in election periods. This is also true for the Manchetômetro in its initial stage, as it was created to reproduce ‘real- Introduction time’ analyses of the election coverage. In this paper, we tried to broaden the analysis Studies on media and on elections in Brazil scope for the period after the election, so have identified a repeated inclination of the as to reveal the media’s role in the political main communications network towards a crisis that has worsen after the re-election of negative media coverage of left-wing can- Dilma Rousseff, which we call here the ‘third didates in the Brazilian presidential elec- round’, and which has led to her losing the tions (ARRUDA, 1995; FIGUEIREDO, 1996; GONÇALVES, 1996; mandate. The hypothesis that we examine KUCINSKI, 1998; MIGUEL, 1999; AZEVEDO, 2000; COLLING, is that in the months following the election, 2000; MIGUEL, 2002). The news media frequently differently from what the literature predicts, tries to defend itself against accusations of the main Brazilian newspapers, in the wake political bias arguing that such behavior is of the political events led by the opposition, simply the result of surveillance of politi- conducted an extremely hostile campaign cal power in favor of the interests of society against the President Dilma Rousseff. – a role that must be played by the press The analyses of this paper were performed in modern democracies and that is called based on the database of the Manchetômetro, ‘watchdog’. In a previous work, we have from the beginning of 2014 until today2. Up to already shown that, unlike what is said, the August 27, 2016, the date chosen by us to con- great national media does not act as a watch- clude the database, there was a total of 35,049 1 The data on the coverage dog regarding the center or right-wing can- encoded articles published in the newspapers of Jornal Nacional will not didates (FERES JÚNIOR; SASSARA, 2016). ‘Folha de São Paulo’, ‘Estadão’, ‘O Globo’ and be shown in this paper, but they have already been Therefore, researchers of political com- ‘Estado de Minas’. In the case of the newspa- presented in previous munications have a very important role – to pers, we took into account what is published works (see FERES JÚNIOR; SASSARA, 2014, 2016; watch the supposed watchdog, that is, to in the covers and opinion pages. Regarding FERES JÚNIOR et al., critically observe the media’s work. Thus, TV Globo’s Jornal Nacional, we analyzed the 2016). The data are also available on our website. during the 2014 Brazilian election campaign, entire program. In the current work, we only the group from the Laboratory of Media took into account the texts published in the 2 In fact, the website also shows the data about Studies and Public Sphere (Laboratório de covers of the following newspapers: ‘Folha de the elections in 1998 and Estudos de Mídia e Esfera Pública – Lemep), São Paulo’, ‘Estadão’ and ‘O Globo’. 2010. We are currently increasing the size of located at the Institute of Social and Political In graph 1 below, we show the number of the database to also Studies (Instituto de Estudos Sociais e articles about President Dilma Rousseff pub- include the analysis of the mainstream newspapers Políticos) of the State University of Rio de lished in the media we searched throughout for the year of 2013, within Janeiro (Iesp-Uerj), launched the website the period of our database, separated by the scope of a project about the demonstrations Manchetômetro (Headline Checker) (http:// their valences. of 2013.
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Graph 1. Dilma: valences (2014 – today)
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Source: Manchetômetro (Lemep).
The interpretation of graph 1 above is not the media coverage of Dilma increased in simple and direct. Firstly, we found out that volume, but the neutral articles led in rela- it is a fact that the articles favorable to or tion to the negative ones until the end of the ambivalent about Dilma are rare in the press second round. In the month after the second coverage, so they are not even worth it to be round, on November 2014, the curves started analyzed compared with the number of ar- to take a divergent path, with the negative ticles that are against or that adopt a neutral articles increasing consistently, while the position. Taking a closer look at the neutral neutral ones showed a tendency towards a and negative articles, the most relevant decline. data to be noticed is the crossover point, in The fact that the neutral articles sur- October 2014, when the number of articles passed the negative ones during the elec- against Dilma was higher than the neutral tion period does not mean that the coverage ones. In fact, we would like to call attention of Dilma was balanced. As we have already to some other details that characterize the shown in the previous graph and in other press coverage before this turning point. It previously published texts, the media cov- is worth mentioning that the coverage tone erage of Dilma’s campaign was extremely during the entire period of Dilma’s campaign negative if compared with that of other can- is highly negative, i.e., during the less intense didates. It is important to highlight here the months, such as January and June 2014, fact that, since the final result of the 2014 the number of negative texts regarding the presidential election, in November, things President were similar to the neutral ones. have become extremely worse, i.e., the With the beginning of the legal campaign, press coverage became even more negative.
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If before the campaign the proportion of frontier of April’s coverage, the most nega- negative and neutral articles was of approxi- tive of all the time series. mately one for one, during the campaign the The skeptical reader must be thinking: neutral articles surpassed the negative ones, but isn’t it natural that in periods of political and after Dilma’s victory, the negative ar- tension, such as the one in which Brazil has ticles reached a level three times higher than been through, the media coverage becomes the neutral articles, consistently remaining more negative? In fact, the answer should be like this until impeachment proceedings. We no. Each one of the facts mentioned above is have truly witnessed a media massacre. the result of a profound moral and practical What we are showing here using other disagreement. As an example, according to words is that there was no ‘honeymoon’ some analysts, the leakage of the intercept of with the major Brazilian press. On the con- a phone call between Lula and Dilma, per- trary, December 2014 was the last month of petrated by judge Sergio Moro, was three the series in which the number of negative times illegal: the phone call was intercepted articles was the same as the neutral ones. out of the period previously authorized Since then, the number of negative articles by Moro; the President was intercepted increased in January – the first month of the without the previous authorization by the new government – reaching a proportion of Brazilian Supreme Court, and the phone more than two times the number of neutral call was released by the press. However, the articles (229 to 92 respectively). In March, media coverage only showed versions that the number of negative articles was almost criminalized Dilma’s acts, not giving enough three times higher than the neutral ones, space to those that had a different interpre- with a tendency of relative increase of nega- tation of the facts. tive articles until the end of the series. The peaks of negativity of the press cov- erage of Dilma coincide with the significant Parameters for comparison events of the political process that has cul- minated in her deposition. In March 2015, Continuing the conversation with our imagi- when the first massive demonstrations in nary skeptical reader, he/she could also ask favor of the impeachment proceedings oc- us whether the negative bias verified in curred, Dilma’s coverage reached records Dilma’s coverage was a product of exactly the of negativity. In December, when Eduardo watchdog attitude of the mainstream media Cunha accepted the impeachment process in towards the ruling power, which in this case the Chamber of Deputies, there was another would be President Dilma and her party, the peak of negativity. Finally, the highest level of Worker’s Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, negativity occurred in the months of March PT). Of course that we could say that we and April 2016, coinciding with all the fol- have already shown this, based on the data lowing events: Lula’s coercive conduction, of the media coverage in the last election, massive demonstrations in favor of the im- that the media in question did not behave as peachment, Lula’s nomination for and sus- watchdogs; on the contrary, they confirmed pension from the ministry, and the leakage a significant bias against left-wing candi- of the intercept of a phone call between dates, chiefly against PT, which had already Dilma and Lula. The acceptance of the im- been verified by an exhaustive list of analysts peachment proceedings in the senate, which of the media’s electoral behavior in the pre- led to Dilma’s ouster, can also be considered vious presidential elections, throughout the as part of the events here, as it occurred in short history of the New Republic. However, the beginning of May and, therefore, in the the skeptical reader could still insist and
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argue that the previous behavior cannot be Furnas, a state-owned electricity company used to explain the present, i.e., that the ob- (TALENTO, 2016). servation of a historical bias does not prove 03/15 – Delcídio Amaral also accused that there was a bias in the period after the Aécio of altering data from the Rural Bank election. Yes, at least hypothetically, it is obtained by the Parliamentary Commission possible that the major media has decided of Inquiry (CPI) of the Brazilian Post Office to change its attitude and in fact assume the (CANES; PEDUZZI, 2016). role of a watchdog of public interests. 05/03 – Brazil’s Attorney General (PGR) The strong bias against Dilma in the post- Rodrigo Janot sent to the Brazilian Supreme election context, shown in the previous Court requests to investigate Aécio, based on section, is an evidence that this hypothesis the accusation of former senator Delcídio is false. By means of a logic of internal com- Amaral, who said that he had to ‘hold the parison, we tried to show that the intensity fort’ when he was the president of the ‘Post of the negativity of the media coverage is Office CPI’ so that the transactions of the not plainly justifiable, as the facts and opin- companies of Marcos Valério, who was con- ions regarding the actions of great part of victed in the mensalão case, could not be re- the actors of this drama, Dilma, Moro, Lula, vealed, as they would reach the president of Eduardo Cunha, Michel Temer, the Brazilian PSDB (MACEDO, 2016). Social Democratic Party (PSDB), PT etc., are 06/10 – A state-owned company from object of great controversy. In other words, Minas Gerais established a partnership with there are several interpretations, but the the father of senator Aécio Neves (PSDB), major media has strongly privileged those Aécio Ferreira da Cunha (1927-2010), when against Dilma. However, it is still worth con- he was still governor of Minas Gerais. The ducting a test of external verification. And agreement revealed a payment of R$ 250,000 we will do this by comparing Dilma’s cov- to grow beans at Cunha’s farm in Montezuma erage with the campaign of her opponent, (in the north of Minas Gerais). One hundred Aécio Neves (PSDB), president of PSDB, and fifty thousand reais were delivered in senator and presidential candidate in the last December of that same year. After the death election. of Aécio’s father in 2010, the company was Aécio Neves has a long political career: inherited by the current senator and his former federal deputy in Minas Gerais, sister, Andrea Neves (MARQUES, 2016). elected in 1987; president of the Chamber 06/15 – Former president of Transpetro of Deputies, elected in 2001; governor of Sérgio Machado reported in his plea bargain the state of Minas Gerais for two mandates; deal in the Lava Jato (Car Wash) Operation, senator for the same state since 2011, presi- that he had passed on bribe to more than 20 dential candidate defeated in 2014 by narrow politicians from different parties, including margin and Brazilian national president Aécio Neves (FALCÃO et al., 2016b). of PSDB since May 2013. In addition to his 06/15 – Sérgio Machado also reported obvious political notoriety as the winner of that he raised illicit funding for the election the opposition, Aécio is also a good param- of senator Aécio Neves (PSDB-MG) to the eter of comparison, as there were several presidency of the Chamber of Deputies in accusations of corruption and other illicit 2001 (FALCÃO et al., 2016a). practices against him. A brief research on 06/18 – Former federal deputy Pedro the 2016 press coverage shows the following Corrêa declared that Aécio was responsible results listed chronologically: for indicating Renato Duque’s predecessor 03/15 – Former senator Delcídio Amaral in Petrobras Board of Service, Irany Varella, accused Aécio Neves of receiving bribe from and that Varella took bribe during Fernando
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Henrique Cardoso’s government (CASTRO; Azevedo, former chief executive of the con- ROCHA, 2016 ). tractor Andrade Gutierrez, and reveals to 06/25 – Based on documents, contractor have discovered a donation negotiation for Léo Pinheiro, owner and former chief ex- Aécio Neves’ presidential campaign through ecutive of OAS, reported that he paid bribe Oswaldo Borges da Costa Filho, former chief to aids of the then governor of Minas Gerais, executive of Codemig and known as the in- Aécio Neves, during the construction of the formal treasurer of PSDB-MG (BACHTOLD, 2016). Administration City, a work commissioned It is worth noting that all these corrup- by Aécio that cost R$ 2.1 billion (CARVALHO; tion accusations against Aécio were reported MAGALE, 2016). in the same media that we are analyzing in 07/13 – The Brazilian Federal Police this paper. However, let’s take a look at the leaked information provided by the cell- valence curves of Aécio for the year of 2016: phone privacy breach of Otávio Marques de
Graph 2. Coverage of Aécio Neves (2016)
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Source: Manchetômetro (Lemep).
Indeed, in spite of being reported by the which the politician had several accusations media, the accusations against Aécio did not of corruption. Graph 3 below, which com- seem to have repercussion. We have noticed pares the negative articles about Dilma and a pattern of curves in which the neutral ar- Aécio in 2016, clearly shows how the media ticles are almost as numerous as the negative coverage was unproportioned: ones or surpass them, even at a moment in
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Graph 3. Articles against Dilma and Aécio (2016)
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Against Aécio Against Dilma
Source: Manchetômetro (Lemep).
The ratio between the number of ar- the parliament, and the mainstream press ticles against Dilma and Aécio varies from assumed a posture even more contrary to the 7, in June, to 82, in August, when she was president than during the elections. removed from office. Aécio had only one The change of the proportion of negative article against him. The visual discrepancy articles still in November, the month follow- between the curves suffices to prove the ing the second round, reveals that the media point, anyway. was not willing to wait for the organization of Dilma’s new government. Media cover- age goes from 96 articles against the former Conclusion president in the cover of the three newspa- pers in October – the last month of the period Our exposition about the behavior of the of elections – to 229 in January, the first Brazilian media in the context after the pres- month of her second mandate, and climbs to idential election suffices to show that Dilma 322 in March. In comparison to October, the did not have any ‘honeymoon’ – a concept number of articles against Dilma tripled. created by academics to describe post-elec- To prove that our estimates of the media tion periods in which politicians enjoy a bias is consistent, we compared the numbers calm period after the elections (JOHNSON, 1983; of Dilma’s coverage with those of Aécio NORPOTH, 1984). On the contrary, her mandate Neves, her main opponent, leader of the started to be threatened even before she opposition in the post-election context took office; since the beginning, her gov- and accused of several corruption allega- ernment had faced enormous difficulties in tions. The test leaves no doubt that the
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‘honeymoon’ has never existed. The discrep- deductions and often groundless accusations. ancy is so significant that it points to a level Post-impeachment Brazil has a govern- of media politicization and militancy that ment with very little legitimacy, which is is incompatible with modern democracy. implementing a program that systemati- However, this subject will not be directly cally reverts all the social and right gains of mentioned here. the last decades; a judiciary system that is The impeachment of Dilma was a con- in tatters and in the hands of people that sequence of several factors, some personal act like righteous individuals, but who can ones, such as the lack of political virtue, the barely disguise their political interests, and a excess of rapacity of her main opponents, society that is terribly unequal and increas- such Eduardo Cunha, and the opportunism of ingly disappointed with the political and politicians such as Renan Calheiros, Michel democratic representation. We have gone Temer and many others. Other factors have through many crises in our history, and this to do with the system, such as the way that one will definitely resolve. However, taking the highly politicized and biased judiciary again the virtuous path of spreading the works, from Moro to the Supreme, as well as democratic institutions and practices will the Attorney General’s Office (MP) and the not be possible if the media continues to be Federal Police, government bodies that in dominated by the same few groups of fami- several moments were out of control, either lies who own big media companies. Quality because the mechanisms of constitutional information and access to plurality of opin- control do not exist, such as in the case of ions are essential to democratic life. Without the Attorney General’s Office or because they them, we either die or become democrati- do not work, as in the case of the judiciary. cally ill. However, it is difficult to imagine how all these elements achieved synergy without the active collaboration of the media, by turning Collaborators Moro and other prosecutors from Curitiba into national heroes, putting pressure on the João Feres Júnior and Luna de Oliveira ministers of the Supreme Court, convoking Sassara were equally responsible for con- medium-class people from the big cities to ceiving, planning, analyzing and interpret- the streets – among them various right-wing, ing the data, as well as for preparing the fascist and coupist groups – and selectively draft, performing the critical review of the persecuting Dilma, Lula and PT, as well as content and approving the final version of various characters linked to them, with lots of this manuscript. s
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References
ARRUDA, L. R. O vôo das notícias: o Jornal Nacional Bahia, Salvador, 2000. e as eleições 94. 1995. 170 f. Dissertação (Mestrado em Ciências Sociais) – Programa de Ciências Sociais FALCÃO, M. et al. Aécio repassou propinas em troca Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São de apoio na Câmara, diz Machado. Folha de S. Paulo, Paulo, 1995. São Paulo, 15 jun. 2016a. Disponível em:
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Saúde Debate | rio de Janeiro, v. 40, n. especial, p. 176-185, DEZ 2016
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