Thirty Berlusconis – South American giant’s flawed media landscape

[Judi Lynn]

Thirty Berlusconis – South American giant’s flawed media landscape
Published on Thursday 24 January 2013. Updated on Wednesday 23 January 2013.

Reporters Without Borders is today releasing a report entitled “Brazil, the country of 30 Berlusconis” that examines all of the shortcomings of this South American giant’s media landscape It is based on fact-finding visits to Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Brasilia in November 2012.

The media topography of the country that is hosting the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics has barely changed in the three decades since the end of the 1964-85 military dictatorship.

As well as the ten or so major companies that dominate the national media and are mainly based in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil has many regional media that are weakened by their subordination to the centres of power in the country’s individual states.

The editorial independence of both print and broadcast media is above all undermined by their heavy financial reliance on advertising by state governments and agencies.

The media’s fragility encourages violence. Five Brazilian journalists and bloggers were murdered in connection with their work in 2012, making Brazil the world’s fifth deadliest country for media personnel.

More:
http://en.rsf.org/brazil-thirty-berlusconis-south-american-24-01-2013,43938.html?dolist=ok/brazil-thirty-berlusconis-south-american-24-01-2013,43938.html

[naaman fletcher]

1. Reporters without borders demands a lot more respect than it deserves

As with some other groups they are compelled to call out some conspicuous atrocities with wide public awareness in order to gain cover for their own agenda

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=405&topic_id=40164&mesg_id=40182

[Judi Lynn]

2. Nice try, and typical.

Sourcewatch:

Funding Sources

Robert Menard, the Secretary General of RSF, was forced to confess that RSF's budget was primarily provided by "US organizations strictly linked with US foreign policy" (Thibodeau, La Presse).

• NED (US$39,900 paid 14 Jan 2005)
  
• Center for a Free Cuba (USAID and NED funded) $50,000 per year NED grant. Contract was signed by Otto Reich
  
• European Union (1.2m Euro) -- currently contested in EU parliament
  
• Rights & Democracy in 2004 supported Reporters Without Borders-Canada [1]
  

"Grants from private foundations (Open Society Foundation, Center for a Free Cuba, Fondation de France, National Endowment for Democracy) were slightly up, due to the Africa project funded by the NED and payment by Center for a Free Cuba for a reprint of the banned magazine De Cuba." [2]

Principal focus of RSF activities

• Cuba
  
• Venezuela
  
• Haiti
  

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Reporters_Without_Borders

[naaman fletcher]

4. I don't understand your comments

I just wanted to make sure that everyone else knew what we already knew about RWB's reliability since you accidentally didn't mention it in your OP.

[ocpagu]

3. Right on.

I'd even say they're exaggerating when talking about 10 groups. I'd say four families:

1st - The Marinhos, who own Latin America's largest (and world's fourth largest) media conglomerate - Globo TV network, O Globo newspaper, G1 news agency, Globo publishing house, etc.

2nd - The Civitas, who own Editora Abril publishing house, Veja Magazine, MTV Brazil.

3rd - The Frias, who own the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, Folha TV, Plural publishing house, online newspapers and agencies.

4th - The Mesquitas, who own the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, publishing houses and a news agency.

Four families. They control all the information that is broadcasted in Brazil - a country larger than continental US, with almost 200 million inhabitants. Yet, this filthy oligarchy claims to defend liberal economic values, lol.

They are all right-wingers, all of them incited and supported the military coup in 1964, all of them supported and financed the military junta for decades. All of them are always doing whatever they can to get the right-wing back to power, to promote the neoliberal agenda and to demonize the left-wing parties, associations, intelectuals, organizations.

Journalist Paulo Henrique Amorim calls them the P.I.G. - Partido da Imprensa Golpista, or Pro-Coup-Press-Party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partido_da_Imprensa_Golpista

Paul Jürgens has written about them for the French magazine Courrier

http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/2010/09/30/une-presse-tres-remontee-contre-lula