Just as Lula’s third government will not be the same as the first and second, the stance of William Bonner, seen as the personification of TV Globo’s editorial line, will be different. The presenter’s good humor during the Jan. 1 inauguration broadcast didn’t even seem to come from the same Jornal Nacional owner who worked relentlessly with the PT in its coverage of Mensalão, LavaJato and the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff.
While Renata Lo Prete showed more technique and presented objective information, Bonner emphasized the plasticity and beauty of the images of the “great party of democracy” and said without fear of joy that “even the clouds in the Brasília sky are more beautiful”.
Agree that the celebration scenes of the crowd, with spectators taking their seats to get a good view of the speech and shows, is a full plate for the open television audience. It was about using the momentum. Turning a blind eye to these images would be editorial and commercial madness.
On pay TV, audiences want more than someone to play for the fans, hence the investment in larger commentary teams. But the enthusiastic tone was not reserved at GloboNews either. Miriam Leitão, once so critical of the PT and Lula, clearly showed her relief at the change of president. As bad as his impressions of the PT have been in the past, the antagonism with Bolsonarianism has redefined everything.
However, this image does not mean that Globo will be kinder to Lula than it has been in the past, at least in the sense that action and results will be demanded of those in charge of public power.
In fact, in 2018 the House newscasts were virtually uncritical of Lula’s arrest by order of thenJudge Sergio Moro, who used to let much of the press stamp his decisions without questioning.
At Globo, Chico Pinheiro reported on the arrest in a Saturday edition of the Jornal Nacional and was rebuked internally over a leaked WhatsApp audio defending the arbitrariness of Moro’s decision.
Pinheiro was fired from Globo last year and later joined the group of advisors who helped Lula with his first job interview with Jornal Nacional as a candidate. In opening the hearing, Bonner made it a point to start the conversation with a premise “You don’t owe the judiciary anything.”
For those who understand and remember that Globo was unfair to Lula throughout the trial leading up to his arrest, the host’s statement sounded like an apology from the network to the thenPT candidate.
By this point in the Jornal Nacional interview, Lula was already proving to be the only viable option to defeat Jair Bolsonaro, with whom Globo had terrible relations. But you have to keep in mind that the broadcaster did not immediately show confrontation or opposition to Bolsonaro either. The broadcasts from Brasilia on January 1, 2019 also deserved a mention of the “big party of democracy”.
Historically, Globo was not one to start a confrontation, a reputation that had dogged him since the military dictatorship, but neither was he one to succumb to excess and threats, as soon happened with Bolsonaro, who didn’t take long to threaten the Channel, which said it would not renew its lease and that it had cut the channel’s advertising budget.
However, the first round of war between Bolsonaro and Globo would not come until almost 11 months after he took office. At the time the channel reported, the porter at the condominium where Bolsonaro lived in Rio de Janeiro confirmed that he, still MP, had granted entry to Élcio de Queiroz, who had been arrested for the murder of Marielle Franco on the day of murder of the former councilwoman.
Bolsonaro fired to curse Globo. Months later, police disputed the doorman’s version. When the broadcaster again embraced Moro in April 2020, who had left the government by shooting at Bolsonaro, relations finally faltered. For four years, Bolsonaro gave exclusive interviews to CNN Brasil, SBT, Record, Band and mainly Jovem Pan, but never Globo.
Despite the honeymoon moment that the network usually feeds whenever it takes office, it is clear that the postBolsonaro context inspires a spirit of truce, peace and better days in the house’s experts and in its editorial line.