Minister defends separation between public and government communication

One day after assuming command of the Secretariat for Social Communication (Secom) of the Presidency of the Republic, Minister Paulo Pimenta visited the premises of the headquarters of Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC), in Brasília, where he once again highlighted the importance of separating communication public and governmental. “I think it is important for the population to understand that government communication, which is also [de interesse] public, aims to provide services and institutional communication of the positions of the country and the government. Public communication, in which the EBC is [inserida], there are more specific objectives,” said Pimenta when interviewed by professionals from the public company itself. “But when we talk about public communication, we are also talking about government communication. Therefore, it is not possible to imagine that there will be no reflections when there is a change [política]when the population chooses a project [político] different. What we have to preserve [separar] the issues that belong to the State and those that belong to the government. Evidently, each government has specific focuses, what it considers a priority. In a democratic regime like ours, there will always be some influence from politics,” added the minister, citing public health issues such as vaccination campaigns as an example of public interest issues. The EBC was created in October 2007, with the purpose of articulating and implementing a national public communication network and managing the federal public broadcasting services. The company is responsible for TV Brasil, Nacional radio stations in Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Amazônia and Alto Solimões, in addition to MEC radio stations in Rio de Janeiro and the federal capital. Also part of the EBC, Agência Brasil and Radioagência Nacional. The company, which was linked to the Ministry of Communications in the government of Jair Bolsonaro, is now linked to Secom in the new government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The minister of the Social Communication Secretariat of the Presidency, Paulo Pimenta, speaks to EBC employees to give “special attention” to EBC. “He asked me to build, with a lot of dialogue, a transition process so that the company can not only be strengthened, but also be part of a project that aims to rescue the credibility of the federal government as a credible disseminator of information”. Pimenta had already mentioned the issue of the credibility of the Executive Branch as a source of relevant information when he took office yesterday. At the time, he stated that, in recent years, some “authorities” have “distanced themselves from the truth and facts”, fueling an industry of disinformation. Today, when asked about the strategic importance of the EBC, he said that, even enjoying editorial independence, the company can “be part of a project whose objective is to rescue the credibility of the government”. Still in his inauguration speech, this Tuesday, Pimenta promised to work so that the former state television station, NBR (which was also managed by EBC), and TV Brasil “return to having specific roles”, with the former resuming the character of a channel responsible for transmitting government acts, and the second being able to dedicate itself to showing informative, cultural, artistic and scientific programming complementary to the commercial media. TV Brasil and NBR were merged in April 2019, prompting the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) to file a public civil action to try to annul the operation that the prosecutors claimed had resulted in the “undue inclusion of typically state programming and of interest to current audiences”. occupants of the executive branch [federal] on the federal public channel, TV Brasil”. The Minister of Social Communication of the Presidency, Paulo Pimenta, in a meeting with the CEO and directors of EBC – Antonio Cruz/Agência Brasil “We want to build a project so that public TV has editorial independence and its own operating logic” , said Pimenta when clarifying, today, that the intention of prioritizing technical decisions to the detriment of ideological bias is extended to other EBC vehicles and that the EBC’s strengthening plans include the recreation of the Board of Trustees, an instance of social participation in the company extinct in 2016, through Provisional Measure No. 744. “We will discuss [a criação de um novo] advice that can fulfill this role. let’s discuss how [o extinto conselho] it worked, whether it was adequate, whether anything needs to be corrected. In a public company, we need to have a curatorship space with a plural representation of society and that accompanies all the work carried out”, commented the minister.

Agência Brasil