A new book on Brazil’s TV Globo argues that the broadcaster, one of the largest in the world, was both a collaborator and victim of that country’s military dictatorship in the late 20th century.
In the nearly 2,000-page book “A Globo,” which will be published in three volumes by Editora Autêntica, journalist and university professor Ernesto Rodrigues tells the history of the broadcaster, one of the branches of Grupo Globo, which also includes radio stations, newspapers and book publishers. The first volume, "Hegemonia: 1965-1984,” came out in December, and covers the period of the military dictatorship. Two others, “Concorrência” and “Metamorfose,” are scheduled for release next year.
In a non-exact chronological order, with temporal back-and-forths that sometimes bring recent episodes closer to events from decades ago, Rodrigues' work mixes anecdotal reports with analysis of situations and events important to the history of the station, and often, to Brazil, as well.
There is plenty of space to explain how TV Globo became so powerful and influential culturally and economically, including everything from financial agreements to descriptions of the development of the aesthetic language of its soap operas, one of its trademarks.
Rodrigues also tells the story behind the scenes of emblematic moments in the history of journalism during the time. Most of the time, the motives are not noble. As the book shows, during the dictatorship, regime censors held fixed management positions within TV Globo. Adherence to official narratives was rigid, leaving practically no space for independent action by reporters and editors. This continued from the first days of the dictatorship until practically the end of the regime, with shameful coverage – or lack thereof – of the beginning of Diretas Já, a movement demanding direct elections in the early 1980s.
Ernesto Rodrigues, author of 'A Globo,' journalist, and professor (Photo credit: Studio H Fotografia/Courtesy)
Rodrigues tells all these inglorious episodes, but says he wants to add nuances to this story. For the author, among the public and academia, Globo is often seen as the only broadcaster that supported the military regime, but this is an incomplete and simplistic view. He says he seeks to contradict, above all, academic studies that, according to him, are influenced by a Marxist vision and focus exclusively on Globo's role as a vehicle for ideological control.
“This idea that Globo was the only broadcaster to support the dictatorship is a distortion. All the big media entrepreneurs did the same,” Rodrigues told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR). “There are very few exceptions, like TV Excelsior, which had bad relations with the military and ended up suffering the consequences. But the rule was adherence to the regime, whether more intensely or more discreetly.”
Rodrigues begins the book by narrating his own dismissal from the broadcaster, where he worked as a journalist from 1985 to 1999. That final year, he authorized the broadcast of false news during an overtime shift, which reported the death of athlete João do Pulo. The mistake almost ended in tragedy.
“João do Pulo’s father saw the news and almost died. It was something that left a deep impression on me,” Rodrigues said. “I don’t dispute the dismissal. For 10 years, I taught television journalism classes and made a point of telling this story to the students as a lesson that our job is very serious.”
Despite the episode, Rodrigues maintained good contacts within Globo, and continued to provide services to the company, for example, producing documentaries. There, he had access to the book's main archive: the Memória Globo collection, made up of 400 testimonies, most of them unpublished, from professionals and former professionals from different areas of broadcasting, journalism, entertainment and drama, to the commercial sector.
The research was complemented by 60 interviews with important figures in the station's history, consultation of previous studies, mainly academic, and six hours of interviews with Roberto Irineu, João Roberto and José Roberto Marinho – the three sons of Roberto Marinho, the company's founder and a notorious conservative. A contract signed with the trio ensured that the work would not have editorial supervision from Grupo Globo. The objective, Rodrigues said, “was to build a complex and honest portrait of Globo’s history.”
“This book is not a settling of scores, nor a project motivated by resentment,” he said. “It is also not a commissioned work or one that is aligned with Globo. My intention was to bring an impartial view.”
Journalism is not the main focus of the book, but it appears directly – for example, in the discussion of technical issues, such as the limitations imposed on recording street news on film until the end of the 1970s – and indirectly, when discussing the group’s economic growth and its relationship with the military dictatorship.
One question permeates the book: in the words of its author, was Globo's journalism “silent, behaved and pro-government based on the conviction of its owner and its professionals, or was it the station's already hegemonic and powerful audience that led the military to be very more rigorous and vigilant with Globo than with other media outlets?”
The author's thesis alternates between the two poles, seeking a middle ground.
“On the one hand, you had a conservative businessman who joined the coup and whose company benefited from the regime. On the other hand, you had a dictatorship that wanted to control the most important television station in the country and that applied very strong pressure, always using the implicit threat of [cancelling its] concession,” Rodrigues said.
“People don’t admit that these two processes could have been simultaneous. And that's what I try to show in the book: it wasn't one thing or the other – it was both," he added.
In terms of complicity, there are arguments that demonstrate resignation and the absence of resistance on the part of professionals. Talking about the creation in 1969 of Jornal Nacional, still today the most important Brazilian television news program, the book contains a statement from Armando Nogueira, its creator and editor in chief for decades, that providing good journalism was not a concern when launching the news program.
“We wanted to know if everything was working from a technical, strictly technical point of view. We were not worried about producing beautiful journalism at Jornal Nacional, because that would not have been possible under censorship that was exercised rigorously,” Nogueira said, according to the book. “Our concern, in terms of television journalism, did not go beyond the form, the format, the visual part, because we suffered restrictions on the exercise of full freedom of information.”
The book also provides good arguments to show the level of surveillance to which the broadcaster was subjected. One of the most striking cases is that of Army Colonel Edgardo Erickson, who held a fantasy position as “director of public relations” at the Globo branch in Brasília. In fact, he acted as a censor, and had a daily program called Ordem do Dia (Order of the Day), which was a kind of daily bulletin for the dictatorship.
“He walked around the newsroom, snooping on what the reporters were writing, and sometimes he even took out his pistol and put it on the bench,” Rodrigues said. “It was a relationship of control, intimidation and surveillance, which shows how far the military was willing to go to ensure that broadcasters followed their orders.”
Amid this level of control, there is a lack of examples of good journalism in TV Globo's first 21 years. According to Rodrigues, one of the only loopholes found was in international news, where censorship was less rigorous. There, a little of the truth transpired with fewer filters, and reporters were able to make discreet analogies between what was happening in other countries and Brazil, Rodrigues said.
Among the few positive examples, there is an edition of Globo Repórter about independence in Mozambique, in 1975, written by Luiz Lobo.
“It was a documentary that dealt with the anti-imperialist war in Mozambique, with very strong content,” Rodrigues said. “But Roberto Marinho had invited Portuguese businesspeople to watch the program, and they were scandalized.”
Another episode was the coverage of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, where the newsroom was divided on how to report the event, and which ended up being reported with some objectivity.
“And this shows how, even under censorship, Globo journalists tried, whenever possible, to explore loopholes and bring a little more independence to the stories," Rodrigues said.
One of the last journalistic cases narrated in the book is the coverage of Diretas Já, a civil movement demanding direct voting. While gigantic demonstrations took over Brazil's main cities in January 1984 calling for the return of democracy, Globo's main news programs ignored the events, under direct orders from Roberto Marinho, according to the book. It is a well-known fact that the Praça da Sé rally in São Paulo, bringing together hundreds of thousands of people on Jan. 25, was reported as if it were a celebration of São Paulo's birthday.
According to Rodrigues, journalists cried in the newsroom that day. According to the book, however, a new phase began for the broadcaster's journalism. Journalists began to revolt, and the quality ended up improving.
“A movement began to try to convince Roberto Marinho that he couldn’t continue like that. And the moment came when Roberto himself understood and moved away from the issue a little, leaving [son] Roberto Irineu to take care of it,” Rodrigues said.
The result of this was the coverage of the Candelária rally in Rio de Janeiro, which was already different, with live broadcast and an impactful approach.
“So, I show that it was a period that started very badly, but that had an important evolution within the broadcaster,” Rodrigues said.
