The hostility towards journalism, common in Bolsonarism, was created by the PT. It is enough to recall the manifesto for press freedom signed by a thousand journalists and lawyers in 2010, after Lula’s attacks against the media; centers for activism in virtual environments (MAV); the blacklist of journalists published on the PT website in 2014; crimes against journalists Míriam Leitão and Andreza Matais.
Now the target is Malu Gaspar, who published an article in the newspaper O Globo in which, based on a cross-section of six sources, he indicates that Minister Alexandre de Moraes, of the STF, had spoken with the president of the Central Bank in favor of Banco Master. Moraes’ wife’s law firm has a $1 million contract with the bank. Because Moraes and BC deny it, they accuse Gaspar’s text of fake news and demand that she present proof.
This is total ignorance of the journalistic method.
The press needs anonymous sources to fulfill its function: control of public authorities. Unsurprisingly, the Constitution guarantees this anonymity. Its role is to reveal a fact which must be investigated by the competent authority. Protected and convergent sources are methodological evidence, not fraud, and official denials do not close investigations.
The approach to truth in journalism is procedural and intersubjective. After the publication of a case by a vehicle, the information enters the public space, is tested, strained, deepened or refuted by other journalistic and judicial actors.
Even the Supreme Court pretends not to understand this method. After all, the investigation into fake news was opened ex officio by Dias Toffoli, when he considered that an article in Crusoe magazine which quoted him was offensive to the STF – the same Toffoli who decreed secrecy in the Banco Master affair after traveling by plane with the lawyer of a member of the bank.
If the highest court in the country and the two main national political spectrums demean journalistic activity, out of ignorance or bad faith, democracy erodes. It is the role of the press and the central forces to act to make this decline explicit and thus contain it.
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