Brazilian radio journalist José Luiz Datena, said on Tuesday, May 15, on his morning radio show that the station was suffering pressure from the mayor of São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab, due to the accusations that the journalist made on his TV program Brasil Urgente, according to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Because of this, the journalist threatened to go off the air, reported Yahoo.
According to the newspaper Diário de Pernambuco, the journalist had accused one of Kassab's former advisers of accumulating $25 million in assets in the past 10 years in an article published by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo on Monday, May 14.
On his radio show on Band, Datena expressed his outrage that the mayor "thinks it is a personal matter against his person," reported the newspaper Correio do Brasil. The journalist also said he had collaborated with Kassab's political campaign and called the mayor of São Paulo "ungrateful."
Famous for his particular way of presenting news and for the accusations he makes during his program, the journalist suffered a foiled kidnapping attempt in March 2012, which police discovered ahead of time.
