Valuing and facilitating the work of the press, recovering the credibility of government communication and combating disinformation were the main commitments announced by the new minister of the Social Communication Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic (Secom), Paulo Pimenta, who took office this Tuesday. fair (3), in a ceremony at the Planalto Palace, in Brasília. The ceremony was attended by several parliamentarians and other authorities, including former president Dilma Rousseff. “In President Lula’s government there will be no walls or fences. There will be no offenses, threats or violence. There will be facts, arguments and a lot of work. We will do this with responsibility and respect for everyone involved in the country’s information process. Government communication needs to return to be a safe, reliable and credible access route for Brazil to travel a smooth road towards the country we want to build”, highlighted the minister in his speech. He highlighted the work of the press as “essential in any democracy”, but that it depends on “solid bridges, mainly those that link journalism professionals to the federal government and public power in general. The minister guaranteed that the government will facilitate access from journalists to sources and that access to the Planalto Palace and ministries will be transparent and efficient. On government communication, Pimenta criticized the way in which the previous government propagated misinformation, mainly through official channels. “Government communication needs to recover the capacity and credibility to be a disseminator of relevant information, with parameters for separating the wheat from the chaff. In recent years, there has been deliberate confusion in these actions. The lack of credibility of authorities, who distanced themselves from the truth and facts, fueled an industry that even hindered the fight against the covid-19 virus. Misinformation kills. We never want to go through this torment again”, he noted. Still according to the minister, from now on the provision of services and public utility information “will no longer be contaminated with ideological positions with decision-making on what should or should not be broadcast”. government TV and will communicate the government’s actions, while TV Brasil will continue as a public TV, always valuing the quality of its products and the information taken to the country”, he assured. Misinformation and digital platforms Another point addressed by the Minister of Secom in his speech was to face the problems of misinformation on digital platforms, indicating that the new government will look into proposals in the area. hen disinformation and hate speech in the digital environment affects individual and collective rights, and negatively impacts democracy. We need to include Brazil in the global effort to find solutions to these problems”, he said. One of the novelties in Secom’s new structure is the creation of a Secretariat for Digital Policies, which will centralize the debate on this topic. Profile Paulo Pimenta is a journalist and an agricultural technician graduated from the Federal University of Santa Maria (IFSM), in Rio Grande do Sul. the PT in Rio Grande do Sul. At the beginning of his political career, he was active in the student movement and served two terms as councilor in Santa Maria. Between 2000 and 2002, he was deputy mayor of the city. As a federal deputy, he served as rapporteur and president of several committees, including the presidency of the Mixed Budget Committee, the most important of the National Congress, between 2012 and 2013. Watch the ceremony in full:
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