By Maira Magro
The massive police mobilization against drug traffickers in the “favela” shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro has led journalists and the city’s residents to find creative ways to follow, debate, and share information about the ongoing violence.
Last week, Globo and Record TV stations covered the events live via helicopter, broadcasting images showing dozens of armed gunmen fleeing from a police raid in the Complexo do Alemão (German Complex) collection of favelas in northern Rio. Video images caught favela dwellers brandishing their weapons at the cameras and even scenes of a man being shot to the ground, Exame.com reports.
The Complexo do Alemão raid was the climax of a week-long response by the authorities to a wave of attacks on police stations, car bombings, and robberies. Different media outlets have put the death toll of police, gang members, and bystanders as somewhere between 35 and 49.
O Globo newspaper has created a Google “Map of the War,” which tracks attacks and police actions including car burnings, explosions, arrests, and shootings.
Extra newspaper has used social media – based in its Caso de Polícia blog - to become one of the top sources for information about the violence. On the blog’s Twitter account, the journalists have been using the hashtags #everdade (“it’s true”) and #eboato (“it’s a rumor”) to sift through fact and fiction. The bloggers also had a live Twitter video channel, where they would respond to reader questions about rumors.
Community journalists have been using Twitter as well. The BBC reports that the @vozdacomunidade has been one of the most popular Twitter accounts for inside information about the violence. The account features reports from a collection of reporters all under the age of 17, coordinated by an aspiring journalism student from his grandmother’s house in the Complexo do Alemão. The team has streamed the sights and sounds from the raids via cell phone, reported on explosions and gunfire, and residents waving white flags for peace.
Elsewhere on Twitter, after broadcasting live scenes of violence, Globo and Record were attacked on Twitter by an account claiming to represent the police’s Special Operations Battalion (BOPE), Folha.com reports.
Initially, the media reported that the account – @Bope_RJ – was official, but a BOPE spokesman said it was fake and that the unit was satisfied with media coverage, Folha explains. According to a Journalism in the Americas source in the Rio police department, the account holder was a member of BOPE, but was not speaking on behalf of the organization.
Global Voices reports that the trending Twitter topics in Brazil and worldwide were dominated by the Rio violence with hashtags like #BOPE, #rio, and #paznorio (“peace in Rio”) among the most popular phrases.
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.
