{"id":76747,"date":"2016-07-25T12:01:04","date_gmt":"2016-07-25T11:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=76747"},"modified":"2016-07-25T13:23:02","modified_gmt":"2016-07-25T12:23:02","slug":"brazils-largest-newspaper-commits-major-journalistic-fraud-to-boost-interim-president-temer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/07\/brazils-largest-newspaper-commits-major-journalistic-fraud-to-boost-interim-president-temer\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s Largest Newspaper Commits Major Journalistic Fraud to Boost Interim President Temer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Para ler a vers\u00e3o desse artigo em Portugu\u00eas, clique aqui<\/u><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"folhacover1<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(updated below (21 Jul)<\/strong><\/p>\n

19 Jul 2016 – <\/em>One of the\u00a0looming mysteries during the last several months of Brazil\u2019s political crisis (as The Intercept<\/em> has repeatedly noted)\u00a0has been the complete absence of polling data from the country\u2019s largest media outlets and polling firms. The lower house voted on April 17 \u2014 more than three months ago \u2014 to send to the Senate impeachment charges against democratically elected President Dilma Rousseff,\u00a0which resulted in the temporary installation of her vice president, Michel Temer, as \u201cinterim president.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then,\u00a0there had been no published polls from Datafolha \u2014 the polling firm used by Brazil\u2019s largest newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo<\/em>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0asking Brazilians if they favor Dilma\u2019s\u00a0impeachment, if they favor the impeachment of Temer, and\/or if they want new elections to choose a new president. The last Datafolha poll<\/a>\u00a0prior to the impeachment vote was on April 9,\u00a0and it\u00a0found\u00a0that 60 percent favored Dilma\u2019s impeachment, while 58 percent favored the impeachment of Temer. It also found that 60 percent wanted Temer to resign after Dilma was impeached, and 79 percent favored new elections once they both left.<\/p>\n

\"Headline:<\/a>

Headline: Ibope poll shows that 62 percent prefer new presidential elections<\/p><\/div>\n

The last poll from the other major firm<\/a>, Ibope, was published on April 25, and it found that 62 percent wanted both Dilma and Temer to leave office and then new elections held; 25 percent wanted Dilma to remain and complete her term; and only 8 percent favored what has happened thus far: that Dilma is removed\u00a0and Temer remains as president.\u00a0Still, that poll \u2014 as bad as it was for Temer \u2014 was\u00a0all the way back in April.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, even though Temer was installed more than three months ago, the Senate is just weeks away from a final vote on Dilma\u2019s impeachment, and the world\u2019s eyes will be on Brazil when the Olympics begin in two weeks, there had\u00a0been no new polls published \u2014 until this weekend. On Saturday, Folha de S.Paulo<\/em> trumpeted a major new poll from Datafolha<\/a> that was as surprising as it was positive for interim President Temer. It was also a radical\u00a0departure from prior polls. The top headline promoted by Folha<\/em>, which quite predictably went all over the country very quickly, announced that half of the country now wants Michel Temer to remain president through\u00a0the end of what would have been the end of Dilma\u2019s term in late 2018<\/em>.<\/p>\n

With the final\u00a0impeachment vote imminent, that is an extremely significant finding: that 50 percent of Brazilians think it\u2019s best for the country if Temer completes Dilma\u2019s term. At least as significant was\u00a0Folha<\/em>\u2019s claim\u00a0that\u00a0only 4 percent said they want neither Dilma nor Temer to stay, while only 3 percent want new elections. This was from Saturday\u2019s lead online article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"Headline:<\/a>

Headline: For 50 percent of Brazilians, Temer should remain; 32 percent want Dilma to return
Poll graphic: What is best for the country?
Temer continues: 50 percent
Dilma returns: 32 percent
Neither of the two: 4 percent
Elections: 3 percent
Other responses: 2 percent
Don\u2019t know: 9 percent<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

The paper also blasted this result on the front page of its Sunday print edition<\/a>, the most-read edition of any newspaper in Brazil:<\/p>\n

\"folhacov-1000x534<\/a>

Highlighted paragraph: In politics, 50 percent advocate that Michel Temer remain as president, and 32 percent prefer the return of Dilma Rousseff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Highlighted graphic: What would be best for the country? Temer continues: 50 percent; Dilma returns: 32 percent; Neither of the two: 4 percent; Elections: 3 percent; Other\/don\u2019t know: 11 percent.<\/p><\/div>\n

Not only was this result shocking given the\u00a0widespread animus toward Temer revealed by prior polls, but it also made no sense on its own terms. To begin with,\u00a0other Datafolha questions that asked who voters preferred to become president in 2018<\/a> showed that\u00a0Temer was at only 5 percent, compared with the poll leader, former President Lula da Silva, who was between 21 and 23 percent, followed by Marina Silva at 18 percent. Moreover, only 14 percent approve of Temer\u2019s new government (compared to 31 percent who strongly disapprove and 41 percent who are neutral). Beyond that, a full one-third of Brazilian voters can\u2019t even name Temer as their current president. And, as one left-wing site noted in denouncing this latest polling headline from Folha<\/em> as a \u201cstatistical fraud,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0it is simply inconceivable that the percentage of Brazilians favoring new elections fell\u00a0from 60 percent in April to 3 percent now, while\u00a0the percentage wanting Temer to remain as president skyrocketed from 8 percent to 50 percent.<\/p>\n

All of those facts made it extremely difficult to understand how Folha<\/em>\u2019s top-line headline \u2014 that 50 percent want Temer\u00a0to remain as president through the completion of Dilma\u2019s term \u2013 could possibly be true. It\u2019s contrary to all known data. But\u00a0Folha<\/em> is the country\u2019s largest paper; Datafolha is a reasonably credible polling firm; and they were unequivocal in their headline and lead graphic about this result. Despite all these obvious grounds for doubt,\u00a0Folha<\/em> did not publish the actual questions asked nor the underlying data with this article, so it was impossible to fact-check their claims.<\/p>\n

As a result, this headline \u2014 that half the country want Temer to remain as president through 2018 \u2014 was heralded by most media outlets and instantly became ingrained as fact: as a potentially lethal fact that could easily seal the deal against Dilma. After all, if 50 percent of the country literally want Temer as their president through 2018, it\u2019s hard to see how fence-sitting senators will deny them what they want.<\/p>\n

But yesterday, the\u00a0full data and underlying questions<\/a> were made public. It is now evident that \u2014 whether through corrupt motives or utter ineptitude \u2014 a journalistic fraud has been committed by Folha<\/em>. The reason only 3 percent of Brazilians said they want new elections, and only 4 percent said they want neither Dilma nor Temer to remain as president, is because the poll question excluded those as option<\/em>s. As the journalist Alex Cuadros noted today<\/a>, the actual question that was asked only gave respondents two options: either (1) Dilma returns\u00a0or (2) Temer stays through 2018.<\/p>\n

\"Question<\/a>

Question 13: In your opinion, what would be better for the country: that Dilma returns to the presidency, or Michel Temer continues in the term until 2018?<\/p><\/div>\n

So clearly, 50 percent of Brazilians did not<\/em> say that it would be best for the country if Temer continues to complete Dilma\u2019s term in 2018: They only said that would be the best choice if the only alternative was Dilma\u2019s return<\/em>. Moreover, it is plainly\u00a0not<\/em> the case that only 3 percent of Brazilians want new elections, given that\u00a0they were not asked that. What happened was that 3 percent of the respondents went out of their way to volunteer that option when presented with the binary choice of \u201cDilma returns\u201d or \u201cTemer stays.\u201d It\u2019s impossible to know from this poll what the actual percentage is of those who want Temer to stay through 2018, or those who favor new elections, or, for that matter, what percentage wants Dilma to return. By falsely limiting the question to only two choices, Folha<\/em> ensured that the results would be totally distorted.<\/p>\n

For many reasons, asking the question in this manner \u2014 by excluding all choices but those two \u2014 is wholly unjustified. For one, Brazil\u2019s\u00a0Supreme Court previously ruled<\/a>\u00a0that the impeachment of Temer should be voted on given that he participated in the same actions that Dilma did. Beyond that, several of the country\u2019s most prominent figures \u2014 including former chief Supreme Court justice Joaquim Barbosa<\/a>\u00a0and former presidential candidate Marina Silva<\/a>, as well as Folha<\/em>\u2019s own editorial page<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 have called for new elections to choose the next president after Dilma\u2019s impeachment. Andr\u00e9a Freitas, professor of political science at Unicamp, told\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>: \u201cGiven that new elections are a viable option, it should have been included as an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as Cuadros noted, prior polls about Dilma and Temer, including the April 9 poll from Datafolha, expressly asked respondents whether they favored new elections. So it\u2019s baffling why this Datafolha poll would purposely omit Temer\u2019s impeachment and new elections and confine the choices to \u201cDilma returns\u201d or \u201cTemer stays.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s simply an argument about polling methodology \u2014 whether it makes sense to limit the choices to just those two outcomes. What happened here was much worse. Once Folha<\/em> decided to limit the question this way, they can\u2019t then deceive the country by pretending that the respondents were offered the full range of choices. By concealing that fact, Folha<\/em>\u2019s headline and lead graphic were not just misleading but outright false.<\/p>\n

It is plainly false to say \u2014 as Folha<\/em>\u2019s graph did \u2014 that only 3 percent think\u00a0\u201cnew elections would be best for the country\u201d since the poll did not ask about new elections.\u00a0Even more damagingly, it is also completely\u00a0false to say that \u201c50 percent of Brazilians believe it is best for the country if Temer continues\u201d through completion\u00a0of Dilma\u2019s 2018 term. One can only say that 50 percent want Temer to stay\u00a0if<\/em> the only other choice is Dilma returns.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

But if the other\u00a0options are included \u2014 Temer is impeached, Temer resigns, new elections are held \u2014 it is a virtual certainty that the percentage of Brazilians who want Temer to stay through 2018 will drop precipitously. As Professor Freitas put it: \u201cIt could be that 50 percent prefer Temer to Dilma if those are the only choices, but part of that 50 percent favor new elections. With that\u00a0option not included, there\u2019s no way to infer that these people prefer Temer.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is no\u00a0small matter. It\u2019s hard to overstate the impact that this hyped poll has had. It\u2019s the only poll from a credible firm that has been published in months. It was timed right before the final Senate vote. And it contained the extraordinary announcement that half of the country is eager for Michel Temer to remain president through 2018: a headline as sensationalistic as it is false.<\/p>\n

Just consider how this poll finding was hyped \u2014 quite predictably \u2014 by headlines from other\u00a0major Brazilian media outlets:<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Headline: Datafolha: 50 percent of Brazilians want Temer through 2018. The first paragraph reads: \u201cPolling from Datafolha conducted on July 14 and 15 found that 50 percent of Brazilians prefer interim President Michel Temer continue through 2018. The return of suspended President Dilma Rousseff was chosen by 32 percent of respondents. The rest of the 18 percent chose neither of the two, said they did not know, or prefer new elections.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Headline:<\/a>

Headline: For 50 percent, Temer should continue; 32 percent want the return of Dilma, says Datafolha The first paragraph reads: \u201cDatafolha Polling revealed on Saturday that 50 percent of respondents prefer that interim President Michel Temer remain through 2018. For 32 percent, the best would be the return of suspended president Dilma Rousseff.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

In an interview with\u00a0The Intercept<\/em>, Datafolha\u2019s Luciana Chong insisted that it was\u00a0Folha<\/em>, not her polling firm, that\u00a0determined the questions to be asked. She acknowledged that it is misleading to state that 3 percent of Brazilians want new elections \u201csince the\u00a0respondents\u00a0were not asked this question.\u201d Chong further stated that any description of this data that claimed that 50 percent of Brazilians want Temer to remain as president would be inaccurate if it did not note that the question confined the options to only two.<\/p>\n

In late April, Reporters Without Borders issued its annual press freedom ranking and Brazil dropped to 104th in the world due<\/a>\u00a0in part to the fact\u00a0that \u201cmedia ownership continues to be concentrated in the hands of leading industrial families linked to the political class.\u201d Specifically, the group found that \u201cin a barely veiled manner, the leading national media have urged the public to help bring down President Dilma Rousseff\u201d and \u201cthe journalists working for these media groups are clearly subject to the influence of private and partisan interests, and these permanent conflicts of interest are clearly very detrimental to the quality of their reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"reporters<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing for Brazil\u2019s plutocratic media to openly incite and agitate the fall of a democratically elected government. As Reporters Without Borders\u00a0found, that behavior poses a direct threat to both democracy and press freedom. But it\u2019s quite another to watch as they simply manufacture headlines and false narratives to suggest that a large portion of the country supports the individual who seized power undemocratically when they plainly do not.<\/p>\n

UPDATE (21 Jul)<\/u><\/strong>: New evidence has emerged showing that\u00a0Folha<\/em>\u2018s journalistic fraud was even worse than we knew when this article was published, and\u00a0Folha<\/em> has responded to this article in the form of a news article. See here<\/a> for our report\u00a0of those subsequent events.<\/p>\n

Related:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Major New Brazil Events Expose the Fraud of Dilma\u2019s Impeachment \u2014 and Temer\u2019s Corruption<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Credibility of Brazil\u2019s Interim President Collapses as He Receives 8-Year Ban on Running for Office<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Watch: First Interview With Brazil\u2019s President Dilma Rousseff Since the Senate\u2019s Impeachment Vote<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

_____________________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald<\/a> – \u2709glenn.greenwald@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Erick Dau<\/a> – \u2709erick.dau@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s one thing for Brazil\u2019s plutocratic media to openly incite and agitate the fall of a democratically elected government. As Reporters Without Borders found, that behavior poses a direct threat to both democracy and press freedom. But it\u2019s quite another to watch as they simply manufacture headlines and false narratives to suggest that a large portion of the country supports the individual who seized power undemocratically when they plainly do not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}