JORNAL DO BRASIL

JORNAL DO BRASIL

Address: Av. Rio Branco, 118, Centro; in 1978, it was transferred to Av. Brasil, 500, Região Portuária, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Civil and Corporate Participation
Translated from the Portuguese by Dylan Blau Edelstein

From unconditional supporter, to moderate critic, to openly declaring itself the newspaper of opposition to the dictatorship in the late 1990s, the history of Jornal do Brasil (JB) is filled with contradictions. Despite suffering censorship and repression, the newspaper was one of the most influential vehicles for disseminating military ideology and supporting the 1964 coup. Even as repression became institutionalized in 1968, which provoked the JB to take a slightly more critical stance, the newspaper continued to follow the path of least resistance, expanding and retracting its support for the regime based on public opinion. A window into censorship under the dictatorship, JB is a benchmark for understanding the history of the press in Brazil.

Founded in 1891 as a monarchist newspaper, one of its founders was the abolitionist Joaquim Nabuco. The paper’s aggressive and doctrinaire support of the monarchy repulsed much of their readership and earned them low regards in public opinion. As a result, the JB newsroom was invaded and plundered on the night of December 16, 1891. In 1893, the newspaper was purchased by a group linked to Rui Barbosa and began to assume a republican stance.

JB would rebrand itself several times. In 1894, it abandoned its more dogmatic style, instead taking a more informative approach to journalism. Due to the excessively high construction costs of its headquarters on Central Avenue, now Rio Branco Avenue, the paper entered into a crisis. This pushed it to rebrand itself once again, this time filling up its pages with classifieds and providing very little in the way of informative content. This lasted until 1954, when new leadership carried out a series of editorial reforms, and the publication once again became a source of information. In 1956, the paper entered a phase of modernization, during which it increased its productivity by 40% and also enacted a number of changes within individual sections of the paper, allowing it to become one of the preeminent news sources in Rio de Janeiro. This reform, spearheaded by Odyla Costa Filho, Janto de Freitas, and subsequently Alberto Dines, was considered one of the most important graphic and editorial reforms in the history of Brazilian journalism. This revamping lasted through 1961, when Dines assumed leadership of the paper.

JB was also the first Brazilian newspaper to adopt a stance of impartiality; or, in other words, it was the first to officially move to avoid providing opinions, instead legitimizing its reporting and winning over readers’ trust with informative and impersonal coverage (Chammas, 2012, p 26).

Following the controversial resignation of president Jânio Quadros, the paper defended the action’s legality and supported João Goulart’s (Quadros’ Vice President, popularly referred to as “Jango”) assumption of the presidency. Carlos Lacerda — the governor of the State of Guanabara, and one of Goulart’s rivals — retaliated with censorship; in 1961, 90% of the paper’s articles were censored. At first, JB supported Jango’s basic reforms and foreign policy. However, the failure of his Three-Year Plan, in addition to his government’s leftist leanings, pushed the paper to break with the president.

The paper denounced the Sergeants’ Rebellion led by commanders, sergeants, and lower ranking officials on September 12, 1963. They also criticized the famous Central Station Rally, the Sailors’ Revolt at the Metalworkers’ Union on March 25, 1964, as well as Jango’s stance on these issues. JB began to cover the government’s reforms as “radical,” affirming in its editorials the existence of a “threat” to democracy. With this, they advocated for an institutional action against the government, even proposing a military intervention, rallying diverse groups to action, namely the military (Chammas, 2012, p. 33).

Following the coup, JB editors celebrated the end of Jango as a democratic victory, treating the coup as a legalist revolution, but also emphasizing that the military regime was just a transitory step towards reestablishing democracy. On April 3, 1964, the front page headline read: “Goulart flees and Brazil returns to normalcy.” On April 5, 1964, the paper announced: “Magalhães comes to Rio to consolidate the revolution’s democratic ideals.” In conjunction, the paper published photos and stories about the new government’s actions against subversive behavior. On April 8, 1964, JB published:

Subversive material weighs in at 15 tons.

Since the revolution’s victory, the Guanabara Dops has carried out 900 investigations, resulting in the apprehension of nearly 15 tons of subversive propaganda material and arms, in addition to “astounding documentation found at ex-President Goulart’s farm in Capim Melado, in Jacarepaguá. At the Campos Railroad Workers Union, authorities discovered subversive material and a list of names of three parliamentarians who were to be shot in the case of a revengeful communist revolution (Jornal do Brasil, April 8, 1964, cover).

Meanwhile, the paper abstained from covering the extreme right’s offensives during the coup, such as the destruction of the headquarters of the newspaper Última Hora and the invasion and destruction of the National Students’ Union. It also failed to mention the political persecution and imprisonment of opposition leadership.

JB had a positive take on General Castelo Branco’s election, believing that a strong executive branch would give continuity to the coup. When the first Institutional Act was established, the paper adopted the military government’s discourse that the intervention would be brief and oriented towards the construction of peace in the country, thus trusting the military with the delineation of rights as a means of overcoming the crisis generated by the previous government. This argument, which used the previous government’s failed measures in order to justify and legitimize the military regime’s actions, was present in the paper’s editorials throughout the dictatorship, particularly during the early moments of the coup.

The newspaper silenced political persecutions and saw the dismissal of public officials as necessary in the face of the country’s recent crisis, especially when it came to the persecution of former president Juscelino Kubitschek, which the paper considered to be legitimate due to the corruption allegations against his government

With the proclamation of the Second Institutional Act (AI-2), JB editorials seemed to oscillate between criticism and praise. At times, they reaffirmed the decree as a response to political crisis; at other times, they criticized the suspension of rights and specific measures, such as incentives for informants, which they categorized as contrary to the “interests of the revolution.”

In 1967, with the indirect election of Costa e Silva, crackdowns in the street increased, intensifying public mobilization against the regime despite the expectation of a gradual opening of democracy. The democratic yearnings that the newspaper had banked on under the army general grew frustrated, particularly following the 1968 prohibition of the Broad Front. Despite this, the paper did not break with the regime, continuing to show its support during various other episodes, including the Osasco and Contagem strikes in the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais, respectively, and the student protests of 1968.

From the many important protests in Rio de Janeiro, two in particular stand out: the death of the student Edson Luis in Calabouço, and the so-called “Red Beach Massacre” at the National Faculty of Medicine (FNM), on September 22, 1966. The latter took place following an assembly of the Rectory of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). As students exited, they were surrounded by police and agents from the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS/GB). Restrained and shepherded to the Botafogo Club’s soccer stadium, the students were beaten and arrested. In both protests, JB elected to criticize the specific students for their radical demonstrations, noting that they left the government no choice but to retaliate.

JB’s stance changed following the “Bloody Friday” protest on July 21, 1968, when students organized against the harsh crackdowns they had suffered in previous days. The demonstration began at the Ministry of Education (MEC) and crossed Cinelândia, moving towards the US embassy, where policemen confronted the protestors (students, political party activists, workers, and unionists). The suppression of the protest was extremely violent, resulting in the death of 28 people (Chammas, 2012, p. 95). The newspaper blamed the violence on the federal government’s negligence.

Following this, the press began to cover the regime’s violence and repression more closely. This provoked a host of legal proceedings, as the government viewed increased public mobilization against the regime as a result of images disseminated in newspapers.

Support for students and the mobilization of new sectors of civil society against the dictatorship resulted in the March of the One Hundred Thousand in July 1968. Here, JB assumed a more neutral stance, upholding the protest as legitimate, but expressing reservations for the potential for leftist radicalism and communist infiltration, which would in turn incite an even more violent reaction from the regime.

Following the Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5), decreed on December 13, 1968, two military officials invaded the JB headquarters. The next day, the newspaper published an indirect critique of the regime:

Dark times. Suffocating temperatures. Unbreathable air. The country is being swept by strong winds. High: 38^oC, in Brasilia. Low: 5^oC, in Laranjeiras. (Jornal do Brasil, Dec 1, 1968, cover page).

In response, two of the paper’s directors were imprisoned. In protest, the newspaper did not circulate on the following day. That same year, groups from the Center of Army Informations (CIE) led an attack on the JB’s paper depository.

By the start of the Geisel government in 1974, the newspaper began to show signs of a critical shift, denouncing the regime’s nationalizing measures and nuclear deals, the excessive concentration of decisions in the executive branch, and the exclusion of input from the business community when making political decisions. In response to these critiques, the government enacted a range of economic boycotts against JB, pressuring the paper to change its story content. Notably, knowing that a large portion of JB’s revenue (nearly 15%) came from advertisements, the government sent dozens of telegrams to ad agencies demanding that they withdraw their content from the paper. As a result, deals were struck regarding what could and could not be published.

Despite this, the newspaper generally portrayed the Geisel government — as well as the government of his successor, Figueredo — in a favorable light. When the Amnesty Law was passed in 1979, Jornal do Brasil viewed it as a significant step forward for the country, denouncing the way that investigations and prisons had been conducted over the course of the regime. In 1981, the newspaper condemned the sham of an investigation into the Riocentro attack. For this report, JB was awarded the Esso Prize in Journalism.

In 1984, JB took on a more moderate posture when it came to the “Direitas Já” (“Direct [Elections] Now”) movement, criticizing the proposal — put forward by the movement’s most radical segments — for a general strike at the Chamber of Deputies on the day of amendment voting. According to JB, this would inhibit the return of democracy and political normalcy. At the same time, the paper denounced censorship of the free press, as well as the military invasion of Brasília.

In 1988, with the proclamation of the Constitution, Jornal do Brasil put forward various critiques, as they found it to be filled with demagoguery and that its text would render the country ungovernable. In 1991, they released a commemorative edition to celebrate 100 years of the paper, with a retrospective on JB’s long trajectory. When discussing the 60s and 70s, in an article by Zuenir Ventura, the paper referred to itself as an “expression of resistance on behalf of liberty” (Chammas, 2012, p. 25), and also as the paper that “resisted the empire of five dictators.” The edition briefly discussed its support of the military coup, characterizing it as unfortunate, but emphasized the paper’s attitude of resistance in defense of democracy and liberty. As such, JB sought to promote its own image of resistance within the popular imaginary. In 2010, in the midst of a grave financial crisis, Jornal do Brasil stopped selling print copies, instead shifting to an exclusively online platform, which still exists today.