Journalist Thaís Bernardes realized early in the morning of Oct. 29 that the police operation underway in the Penha and Alemão complexes, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, was different from other routine operations in the city’s favelas.
"On the first day, I thought it was just another police operation," Bernardes, founder of community media outlet Notícia Preta, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR), noting the normalization of these kinds of actions even by journalists themselves.
When she was alerted that residents were finding bodies in the woods between the two complexes, which together house 26 communities, she left her home on Ilha do Governador to go to the location with her husband, photojournalist André Melo.
"When we got there, we started to understand the scale of it. For me, the worst thing was the smell of death," she said.
What Bernardes witnessed in the Penha Complex was part of the deadliest police operation in Rio de Janeiro's history, which left 121 people dead, including four police officers, and mobilized approximately 2,500 agents from the Civil and Military Police. The total number of deaths only came to light after residents entered the wooded area and took dozens of bodies to a nearby square, revealing the scale of the operation.
The operation also sparked a debate about the role of the press in covering deadly police operations. In the following days, journalists and researchers discussed recurring limitations of this type of coverage, such as the initial reliance on official versions, language problems in describing the dead and suspects, the absence of residents' voices, and the responsibility of the press to contextualize episodes of violence in peripheral territories.
Notícia Preta produces coverage focused on politics and public safety with an anti-racist lens. Bernardes said the focus of the outlet's work during the unfolding police operation was to show the organization and mobilization of the community, providing a service and supporting residents of the region. The outlet showed, for example, the actions of a church that was assisting people at the scene, as well as where the deceased were being taken and how people could obtain information about their relatives.
“Our focus was to report what was happening in the area. What I was trying to show there was how the community is organized,” Bernardes said. “All of Notícia Preta's communication work was aimed at serving society in the Penha Complex.”
Founded in 2018, Notícia Preta celebrates its seventh anniversary on Nov. 20 and has a team of 11 people in the newsroom reporting and managing social media. The outlet is currently sustained thanks to the Escola de Comunicação Antirracista, an initiative created by Bernardes to promote professional training, and the Orire Institute, an organization used to raise funds for social projects.
Notícia Preta prioritizes the issues and perspectives of Black and marginalized communities in Brazil. With an approach that combines denouncing racial inequalities and valuing community narratives, the publication demonstrates a model of independent journalism that builds trust with residents and gains access to stories that traditional media cannot reach.
“Community journalism in Brazil today is journalism that operates where traditional journalism cannot,” Bernardes said. “The approach we take, the focus we give, the way we approach things, and above all, the perspective we have, is not the same.”
As part of the 5 Questions series, LJR spoke with Bernardes about the operation in Rio de Janeiro, the precautions taken to provide humane and anti-racist reporting and the importance of community journalism in covering violence. The interview has been edited for greater brevity and clarity.
1)What was the reporting process in this situation?
As a journalist in this situation, I observe more and wait for people to come to me with their stories, because that's where you establish a relationship of trust. There's another thing: I'm just like those people. I come from where they come from. I think that makes all the difference in the kind of journalism we do.
We saw scenes from traditional media of a reporter chasing after a desperate mother with a microphone in hand. We don't need that, because we know how to reach her, we know what to say to her.
Because we are the same as them, we know how to approach them in the best way. There's something else, which might seem bizarre: you're performing your duties and you grew up seeing that. It's not a big shock. That's even a problem because it's the trivialization of violence.
2) What were the main challenges in gathering and publishing information in real time?
The challenge in the field was getting the official data. The people in the newsroom were giving me the official figures, but the official data didn't match the data we had there. We had one count, and the government had a different one. That was a big challenge. They were saying there were 70 cases, and we were at 100. We had to report "according to our count" because that's what we were seeing there.
Another challenge was the narration. How am I going to narrate something that seems to be the same thing all the time? "Another body, another body, another body." So it was very difficult not to fall into cliché narrative patterns.
I was capturing small moments. For example, the people's revolt, the residents making a banner, shouting slogans. At one point they heard from several lawyers and human rights defenders. And they formed a circle to explain to the people what they had to do, their rights. So we were narrating these moments.
3) Did you have any specific concerns about how to portray the victims and the dead?
Yes, I did. All the images are very raw. It's a very fine line to avoid being sensationalist. We opted a lot for close-ups, showing a hand, a trash can, or a person crying while hugging someone, with their head down, or wide shots where we couldn't identify faces. And [cutting out] minors. Obviously, it's something that seems obvious, but it's not respected. You have several photos from traditional media where we see children.
4) How do you handle language when talking about the victims?
We have some rules at Notícia Preta. For example, we say: "121 people dead." We don't say "suspect" because there's no way to know if someone is a suspect. There's no connection between the people [at that moment]. There are 117 people and four police officers. That's all we know.
Saying that they are people is very important. To humanize them. Historically, the Black body has always been seen as a commodity. I have to say that they are 117 people, because they are 117 people.
Our constant concern is also how we report the news without seeming like we're defending criminals, because that's not the case. That's a huge challenge.
It's very difficult for us to make people understand that what we're actually defending is everyone's right to life. When we talk about a genocidal state, we're talking about a genocidal state that killed a police officer, that exposed an agent to that situation. Because if the police officer died, he was killed by the State just as much as the criminal.
As an independent media outlet, given the stereotype that we defend criminals, how do we address this? It's complicated because people assume we're against the police. And in reality, we're not against the police. Especially since the majority of police officers are Black.
I still haven't found an answer to that challenge. What we do is mention the police in all our articles. We also do articles solely about the police.
Obviously, we can't equalize everything. The name of the publication is Notícia Preta (Black News). So there's already a bias there. I call myself an anti-racist publication from the progressive camp. But people already have their ideas formed, because it seems like you either have to be one thing or you have to be another.
5) What lessons does this operation teach us about the role and importance of community journalism in Brazil today?
Community journalism in Brazil today is journalism that operates where traditional journalism cannot. Even though we are physically in the same space, even though I am side-by-side with the TV reporter, we are not in the same sphere. The approach we take, the focus we give, the way we approach things, and above all, the perspective we have, is not the same.
We have major challenges that perhaps traditional media don't face, which is the challenge of the survival of these independent media outlets. Economic challenges, challenges of reach.
Notícia Preta gained almost 20,000 followers because of this disaster. How sad it is that a tragedy has to happen, and we have to cover that tragedy so people know that there are people from favelas, from the peripheries of cities, and Black people doing serious journalism. People saw truth in what I'm doing. They saw that it's real reporting, they saw that we're in the field, they trust what we're doing. The numbers prove it. And how sad it is that a tragedy has to happen for them to learn about our work.
I was at an event and the girl said, "Wow, you're that girl from the video." She had reposted a video of me talking about the role of churches in the Penha Complex. I thought: I'm so glad I made that video. And I'm so glad I talked about it, because it was something the mainstream media wasn't going to do.
