Extra! Extra! The TV wants your mind!

I watched a news report the other day on the Globo. The well-produced video footage, clear narration and array of interviews deeply impressed me. Informative, concise, emotionally impacting, tasteful, almost artistic... This is high quality journalism, people.

As the report drew to a close, the reporter concluded with (my translation - more or less) "THIS IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY. THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF THESE EVENTS IS THIS. THESE ARE THE ACTIONS SOCIETY SHOULD NOW TAKE."

I wish I had been drinking something so I could spray it out my nose for a more appropriate demonstration of my shock.

Gasping for air in a thick cloud of righteous-indignation, I exclaimed, "That would never happen in the US!" Ricardo dryly murmured, "Well, I guess you guys have it all figured out then..."

"Yep. Pretty much," just didn't seem like a very good response.

As I calmed down and thought, I realized it's not really like reporting in the US is unbiased. Fox News anyone?

ALL reporting selects images, quotes and words to leave the viewer with a certain impression... Here it's just a little more obvious: to say the least.

We can never expect journalists to fairly represent all possible view points without humanizing some and villanizing others. After all, journalism isn't a public service so much as an economic activity. Fox News, CNN and the local channels only put up content people will watch and generally people don't want to disinterestedly examine an event or issue from all view points to reach a well-informed, personal conclusion.

We watch to be shocked and titillated. Consider the latest Michael Jackson bruhaha. We want journalists to scratch our cultural bellies.

So I guess, I'm actually alright with patent editorializing. After all, the more obvious it is, the easier it is to refute.

Remember, this is a country were the press was [very recently] the government's key tool to repress political dissent and control the nation's diet of information. A little blatant moralizing in an otherwise fantastic report pales in comparison to relentlessly squashing a politician's career and wrecking his private life just because he pissed off the news editor. Huzzah for progress...