Fernando Rodrigues on "Journalism and Public Information in Brazil"

This afternoon, our Tuesday Luncheon guest was Fernando Rodrigues, a Nieman Fellow who spoke about "Journalism and Public Information in Brazil."

To learn more about Fernando and his talk, check out the full description at the Berkman Center events blog, and also be sure to read the extensive Q + A (below) that Berkman Center intern Yvette Wohn conducted before Fernando's visit.

If you missed the lunch, catch the audio and video at MediaBerkman, which will be posted later today, and see the transcript of the talk here.

Q. Did increased information on politicians draw more voters as it did viewers?

A: It is hard to judge. There is no official statistics on that (relating the website to voters' turnout). But since the database has drawn a considerable audience I suppose it helped to raise the voters’ interest in politics.

Q. How cooperative or not were politicians in having their information revealed on Web sites?

A: I did not have to rely on politicians to get the information. All material was retrieved from the 27 state election commissions’ archives. Brazil has 27 states and each state is required, by federal law, to collect the data on all politicians running for public office. In theory, that information should be made public. That never happened except for some major races (presidential or gubernatorial elections in bigger states). I decided to file a request for all the information on all the candidates. Since I had to establish contact with 27 different entities (in all 27 states) it took me initially two years to finalize the first version of the website, which was opened to the public in 2002. It was a lengthy process because the public officials in charge of filing the information were very frequently uncertain of whether they should give me or not the data. In various occasions I and my newspaper had to go to sue in order to receive the papers.

Q. How does Rodrigues pay to maintain the Web site?

A: The website (www.politicosdobrasil.com.br) was a joint-venture involving three parts: 1) the newspaper “Folha de S.Paulo”; 2) the news portal UOL (www.uol.com.br) and 3) myself. After the database was completed and the website developed, UOL has been responsible to keep it functional. The high costs are linked to the building up of the data base and collecting the information. After that, the maintenance expenses are minuscule. Remember that Brazil has federal and state level elections only every four years, all of them on the same day –so the website needs to be updated only once every four years. We are now considering the inclusion of information on candidates running for mayor and city councils. That is a more complex task, since there are approximately 5,600 mayors and 120,000 legislators at city level.

Q. How does the absence of a Freedom of Information Act affect Brazilian reporters?

A: It prevents the media from having easy access to all sorts of information within the public sphere. But it is necessary to put a caveat here: the Brazilian Constitution states clearly that public information has to be made accessible to the public. The problem is that there has never been a legal comprehensive regulation for that mechanism to work. It is rather a gray area. Several media outlets are suing government agencies on the grounds that the Constitution already empowers the people to request any type of public document.

More recently, several institutions have founded the National Forum of Right of Access to Public Information (www.informacaopublica.org.br). This advocacy group main goal is to put pressure on the government and on the Congress towards a Freedom of Information law for Brazil.

Q. Do Brazilian journalists still experience certain restraints on freedom of speech?

A: The answer is yes, but again it is necessary to consider that Brazil is a very diverse country and the restrictions vary immensely depending on the region where you are. I would say that the major media outlets enjoy a high degree of freedom of expression. Things change dramatically in the countryside, in more remote areas, where newspapers, TV and radio stations are not financially independent.

Q. How "wired" are government agencies in terms of posting policies or other information on their Web sites?

A: There has been a boom of e-governance in Brazil in the last years. The “Global E-Government, 2007” report shows how 198 countries (Brazil inclusive) are doing in that area. It is an in-depth study conducted by Darrell M. West from Brown University. To my surprise, Brazil ranked in position 36 in 2006 and was upgraded to 13th place in 2007. The full Brown University report can be read at the following URL: http://www.insidepolitics.org/egovt07int.pdf.

 Q. How developed would you say the Internet is in Brazil, especially in comparison with other South American countries?

A: There were 42.6 million people with access to the internet in Brazil last December, up from 33 million a year earlier. Brazil accounts for 46.3% of South Americans connected to the internet. Statistics show that the country has one of the fastest growing paces of new Internet users in Latin America.
One must consider, of course, what percentage of the population is connected. In that case, for Brazil, the percentage is 22.4%. Here are some other major LA countries:

Brazil – 42.6 million users (22.4% of the population) (growth rate 2007 X 2000 = 752%)
Mexico – 22.7 million users (21.3%) (growth rate 736%)
Argentina – 16 million users (39.7%) (growth rate 540%)
Chile – 7 million users (43.2%) (growth rate 300%)
Venezuela – 5.3 million users (20.4%) (growth rate 457%)
Colombia – 10.1 million users (22.8%) (growth rate 1,050%)
source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats15.htm#south

Q. What are the major factors that fuel Internet usage in Brazil?

A: There are several factors playing a role in this new phenomenon. They all have something to do with Brazil’s recent past, its transition from a military dictatorship into a full democracy and, last but not least, the good shape of the economy.

During the times of high inflation (sometimes hyperinflation) back in the late 1970s and during all the 1980s, Brazilians learned to manage their bank accounts electronically. Automated banking has already been a solid and pervasive reality in Brazil for the past 20 years. People got really accustomed to use ATM machines a long time ago and developed a taste for computer usage. Then we had electronic elections: 120 million voters in Brazil cast their ballots electronically every election year since the middle of the last decade. In 2006 the country staged the largest electronic election on the planet: 100% of the voting precincts were digital and the results came out entirely at the end of the day.
Not less important, there are about 120 million cell phones in Brazil.

Finally, the country has become a steady democracy for the past 22 years. The economy has been stabilized a decade ago. The hard currency foreign reserves ($ 185 billion) outnumber the external debt ($ 180 billion). That makes Brazil a curious Third World country with no net debt abroad. Brazil has become self sufficient in oil production a year ago and already is the largest world producer of ethanol. The Brazilian GDP growth rate was above 5% last year. This whole new environment paved the way for a thriving Internet. Brazilians moved onto a step up in development. Some 20 million Brazilians left classes D and E (poor and very poor) in the last five years to become part of class C (lower middle class). Consumer credit is expanding. In short, Brazilians are now demanding more services and one of the top priorities seem to be access to the Internet.

Q. Does Brazil follow the relatively global trend in which more people are opting to read newspapers online instead of in paper?

A: Pretty much so. But as in all other countries, Internet is not as profitable as the “old media”. The conventional wisdom goes that it is only a matter of time. Maybe it is. I don’t have an answer (who does?). So far, as I can see, most print newspapers are enhancing their Internet operations –here in the US, in Brazil and elsewhere.