At least 19 journalists and media professionals were attacked in various cities in Brazil between April 5 and 7 while working to cover former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) going to jail, according to records from the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). The assaults, which came from supporters of Lula and the Military Police, were repudiated by press organizations in Brazil and Latin America.
Journalists and radio broadcasters at Empresa Brasileira de Comunicação (Brazil Communication Company, or EBC), a federal public agency, protested on March 20 against direction given by company managers to reduce coverage of the murders of Marielle Franco, a city councilor for Rio de Janeiro, and her driver Anderson Gomes, both killed in a March 14 shooting.
Mass communication was one of the areas most affected by the expansion of technology. Technological changes have also put the traditional media business model in check. In this context, technologies such as algorithms, artificial intelligence and Natural Language Generation (NLG) have emerged, which are increasingly dominant in media companies that use them for a variety of applications from news production to content distribution.
João Moreira Salles spoke about the principle challenges facing the Brazilian press today, chief among them a lack of diversity in terms of race, economics, gender, religion, geography and media ownership.
The Brazilian press needs to do more to create diverse newsrooms.
In a move contrary to global trends in journalism, the traditional newspaper Jornal do Brasil (JB) returned to the newsstands on Feb. 25 after eight years after it closed its print edition and became a purely digital media outlet.
Fifteen journalists who participated in the online course "Introduction to Programming" were at Google offices in São Paulo on Feb. 19 for an exclusive Python workshop. They were able to deepen what they learned in the Knight Center course with instructors Pedro Burgos and Álvaro Justen.
The Brazilian Civil Police have accused Renato Oliveira, deputy secretary of Embu das Artes prefecture, in the São Paulo metropolitan region, of being the author of an attack against journalist Gabriel Barbosa da Silva, which occurred on Dec. 28, 2017.
Folha de S. Paulo, the newspaper with the largest circulation in Brazil, surprised the news industry on Feb. 8 by announcing it would stop publishing content on Facebook as its directors believe that recent changes in the social network’s algorithm diminish the visibility of professional journalism and favor the spread of false content. The newspaper’s executive editor, Sérgio Dávila, says there are reports of similar moves in other newsrooms.
The Brazilian Civil Police arrested four people on Feb. 9 in the town of Edealina, in the state of Goiás, who are suspected in the murder of radio broadcaster Jefferson Pureza. Those arrested include councilmember José Eduardo Alves da Silva, of the Party of the Republic (PR) who is accused by police of ordering the crime that occurred on Jan. 17, 2018.
It’s been a tumultuous few years of Brazilian news. A year after the World Cup frenzy and the presidential election that ended in an impeachment a few months later, newsrooms turned inward: Which would be the next to downsize? As company after company laid off employees, some journalists in São Paulo began to wonder just how many reporters and editors had become unemployed in the shrinking of the news industry in Brazil in the past couple of years.
The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) announced on Jan. 24 that members of the organization will investigate the murder of radio journalist Jefferson Pureza Lopes, who was shot dead on Jan. 17 in the city of Edealina, in the state of Goiás.