An injunction by the Regional Electoral Court in Tocantins state says 84 media outlets are not allowed to publish or broadcast news about a criminal investigation into the state’s incumbent gubernatorial candidate, Carlos Gaguim (PMDB), writes Veja reporter Reinaldo Azevedo. Gaguim’s campaign team formally complained to the court that such reports involved the use of journalism with the political goal of supporting rival candidates.
The Rio de Janeiro-based newspaper Extra carried a front-page image of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as the King of Hearts to make fun of his recent remarks against the media.
Approximately 500 members of unions, social movements, and journalism groups gathered at the São Paulo Journalists’ Union offices to demonstrate “In defense of democracy and against media coup-ism,” G1 reports.
Google this week released an online digital tool designed to track censorship around the world, according to the BBC.
The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas has created a map depicting media censorship in Brazil leading up to the Oct. 3 elections for president, governors, and federal and state senators and representatives.
In the wake of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s statements accusing the press of acting like a political party, unions, several worker groups, government partisans, social movement activists, and progressive bloggers are planning an “action against media coup-ism” this Thursday, Sept. 23, at the headquarters of the São Paulo Journalists’’ Union, O Globo reports.
The Electoral Court in Mato Grosso state issued an injunction against the state’s largest media company, Gazeta, preventing it from publishing stories that say acting Federal Deputy and current Senate candidate Carlos Abicalil (PT) supports decriminalizing abortion, A Gazeta and Folha de S. Paulo report. The ruling would fine the paper A Gazeta and the TV station Canal 10 more than $58,000 if they fail to comply.
The National Newspaper Association (ANJ), the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, and the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) condemned statements by President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva that he will “ defeat the papers and magazines that behave as if they were political parties,” O Globo reports.
The federal prosecutor’s office has accused TV Globo and the Group of 13 soccer consortium of engaging in unfair trade practices in negotiating broadcasting contracts for the Campeonato Brasileiro, the country’s top soccer division.
Military police accompanied by a court official confiscated television sets, cameras, furniture, and even the transmitters of the television channell TV Descalvados, affiliate of the SBT network in the town of Cáceres, in the western state of Mato Grosso, reported Midia News. The seizure, which forced the channel off the air, was court-ordered to pay for "moral damages" inflicted on the city's first lady, Gisele Fontes, according tol Diário de Cuiabá.
The police confiscated 850 copies of the weekly newspaper Impacto Campo Grande, based out of the capital of Mato Grosso do Sul, for criticizing the state’s incumbent gubernatorial candidate André Puccinelli (PMDB), Midiamax and the paper’s blog report.
Brazil’s 2010 elections has been marked by the use of the internet as a means of broadening information access and bringing citizens into the electoral process, Global Voices’ Manuella Ribeiro writes. In this world of “Politics 2.0,” the candidates are using social media to campaign and participate in debates, while transparency and citizen participation projects are proliferating on the internet.