By Maira Magro
Federal prosecutors in São Paulo have begun to investigate whether the Portuguese media group Ongoing has violated a constitutional provision that bans foreigners from owning more than 30 percent of a media outlet, Folha de S. Paulo reports. The investigation was motivated by a complaint from the National Newspaper Association (ANJ) and the Brazilian Association of Radio and TV Broadcasters (Abert).
Ongoing is partnered with Ejesa, which manages the newspaper Brasil Econômico and recently purchased the company that owns the newspapers O Dia, Meia Hora, and Marca.
According to Folha reporters Elvira Lobato and Julio Wiziack, Ongoing executives are planning to buy stakes in Rede TV, launch a subscription based economics channel, and start a newspaper in Brasília. The article also claims that ruling party officials have been working with Ongoing to implement a government-allied media network, to compete with the major private domestic companies.
The news editor of Brasil Econômico, Ricardo Galuppo, contested the Folha report in an editorial: “There are so many lies, so many follies, so much nonsense published in one and half pages of the newspaper that it would be pointless to respond to each and every one of them.” The editor accused the owners of Folha and Globo of trying to block competitors from entering the market and said the ANJ was their mouthpiece.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
