“Racial inequality is brutal in Brazilian journalism, although there is also gender inequality”, said Professor João Feres Júnior, when commenting on the survey Race, Gender and the Press: Who Writes in the Main Newspapers of Brazil?, whose results were released this month . The survey was carried out by the Group of Multidisciplinary Studies of Affirmative Action (Gemaa) of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj), of which Feres Júnior is the coordinator. The survey mapped the profile of professionals who write for the three largest printed newspapers in the country, Estado de S. Paulo, Folha de S.Paulo and O Globo, and had the collaboration of the Black Journalists Network for Diversity in Communication, an association dedicated to combat the scarcity of opportunities for black professionals in this market. According to the research, the analyzed newspapers maintained the white majority identified in a study carried out in 2021, reaching 84.4%, which indicates the existence of strong racial inequality. ), followed by black (3.4%), yellow (1.8%) and indigenous (0.1%). João Feres Junior observed that, when it comes to opinion texts, considered the journalistic “fillet of the menu”, the overrepresentation of white journalists rises to 90%. “In editorials, it reaches 100%, as is the case with Estadão”, highlighted the professor. In O Globo, they are 93% and, in Folha, 86% are white. “Not only is there a brutal underrepresentation of black people writing in newspapers, but also in terms of the most powerful space in newspapers,” he noted. “White women even beat men as columnists, with more time writing, while white men occupy almost exclusively the categories with more frequent appearance in the mainstream media, and blacks are in the category of appearing once or twice, less frequently” . In other words, there aren’t many black columnists in the mainstream media, he added. Considering the race and gender profile, it is observed in the three newspapers that most texts are signed by white men, followed by white women, while a small portion involves black men and black women, in that order. For researchers, this denotes a problem of making social groups invisible in the production of narratives and information that lead to opinion formation. According to the survey, white women lead among the most frequent contributors (above 16, from 11 to 15 and from 6 to 10 texts in the surveyed period relative to 2021), while black men and women are in the lowest frequency range ( from 1 to 5 texts in the period). The study indicates that the inequality of the general distribution is reproduced in a similar way by the approached themes. The exception is news related to sports, whose texts have six times more male than female authors. Gender and age There is also gender inequality in the newspapers surveyed. Women represent a third of all press professionals in the three vehicles, with a share of 36.6%, while men hold 59.6%. Another interesting data shows that women are concentrated in the lower age groups, while men are mostly in the age groups from 50 years old. The research points to two hypotheses to explain this data: “the observed imbalance may have to do with the cultural change in favor of greater gender equality, which would affect more the entry categories, that is, the younger ones, and newspapers have internal mechanisms that promote the exclusion of women throughout their careers”. João Feres Júnior stated that it is not possible to know what the true cause of this difference is, but admitted that it could be a combination of the two hypotheses. The State of S. Paulo has the highest proportion of people over 60 years old (20%), followed by Folha (15%) and O Globo (10%). In all, this group is composed mostly of men, reveals the survey. Solution João Feres Júnior stated that the solution to racial and gender inequality in the mainstream media is for newspapers to hire more black people and establish a greater gender balance. “There is nothing else. It is an affirmative action policy to increase the participation of black men and women”. For the professor, the most glaring issue that needs to be resolved is the representation of blacks and also of browns in Brazilian journalism. He points to an intensity of underrepresentation of black journalists, “which can be called discrimination, or the intensity of white dominance in these spaces; the fact is that white hegemony increases as you move towards the spaces of greater power and prestige in the newspaper, which are the columnists and, later, the editorials”. Feres said that it is also necessary to resolve the issue of gender underrepresentation, as women are also underrepresented, although not as much as blacks. Women are more represented in younger categories than in older ones. According to the professor, these are the most important findings of the research. He proposes the creation of an inclusion policy that achieves goals, or establishes quotas. “For example, fixing that, in five years, we have 20% or 30% of blacks”. For Feres Júnior, it’s no use just talking: you have to do things. The research reinforces the role of journalism in the symbolic reproduction of Brazilian society and in the political information of citizens, “so fundamental for the functioning of the democratic regime”. For him, the underrepresentation of blacks and browns in major newspapers shows the existence of a serious cultural, social and political problem that seems not to have been tackled by measures of inclusion and diversity in newsrooms. Portrait In the evaluation of the coordinator of Racial Equality of the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj), Valdice Gomes, the research clearly shows that blacks and women are a minority in the newsrooms of the great media, and the Gemaa/Uerj study confirms the portrait that comes being done on the racial profiling of the Brazilian press. “This just shows how much black journalists have been denouncing and claiming policies and affirmative actions in the communication segment as well. The profile drawn only goes to prove how much the journalism done by these vehicles is harmful for the population itself. It is not representative of Brazilian society, when it is known that the majority of the population, 56%, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), are black people.” Valdice also drew attention to the fact that the majority of the Brazilian population is made up of women. “And journalism made with this profile portrayed in the survey shows that the reality of Brazilian society is not being shown more truthfully. This undermines the journalism that is being done.” According to the journalist, when racial and gender issues are addressed, they do not come with the necessary quality. “It is harmful journalism, not only because of the profile of the professionals who do it, but also because of the sources that are heard and presented. Not even the population is represented in the sources, much less by professionals. And that, of course, is harmful to society and does not contribute to the reduction of racism or sexism.” According to Valdice, it is for this reason that Fenaj fights so hard for affirmative actions, racial and gender equity policies to also occur in the communication vehicles. A few years ago, black journalists denounced the situation, but there was no research. “These were situations that we felt in the skin, because we lived the reality. Today, there are surveys. So, there is no excuse for the media to stop promoting such policies. Today, they have these numbers, they have this data.” For Valdice, what is needed is for businessmen in the sector to understand and demonstrate willingness and interest in contributing to a better society. Journalism is a social good and, if it is a social good, it has to be at the service of the majority of Brazilian society. “While he [jornalismo] If you have this profile, you will not be contributing to the improvement of society, to a more democratic, fairer and less racist society.” A step forward Professor Dione Moura, director of the Faculty of Communication at the University of Brasília (UnB), showed no surprise at the Gemaa survey. “The data is not surprising, although it goes against what it should be. They do not cause surprise or astonishment, because they reflect gender and racial inequality in Brazilian society, but they go against our desire. Not only mine, as a researcher, journalist and black woman, but that of a large community, our desire that institutions take a step forward, towards gender equality and the reduction of racial inequality.”. According to Dione, the fact that Brazilian society is unequal does not allow companies from any sector to say that, since society is unequal in terms of race and gender, so are we. “No. The function of the institutions is to say that Brazilian society has gender and racial inequality and we, as media institutions, will go in the opposite direction and will promote gender and racial equality policies. Therefore, this data contradicts, because it goes in the direction of something that we could have already done.” Dione stated, however, that a natural movement cannot be expected. “We have to have affirmative actions for the selection processes of female and black women journalists and also indigenous and quilombola. We need this inclusion movement, which will not be natural, just as the process of enslavement of black people, our ancestors, on the African continent was not natural”. According to her, only social action can correct the results of slavery in Brazil and throughout Latin America. “We will not get out of this without incisive action.” Respect In the professor’s opinion, the three newspapers analyzed in the research deserve, due to their historical role, all the respect of the community of readers, but they can generate even more respect to the extent that they start to include in their selection processes, from the stage, a racial and gender equality policy. “This is also an obligation of the institution, contemplating black journalists, indigenous peoples and quilombola communities”. Dione made it clear that it is not the black journalist who will have a job that earns. The reader, the spectator, the internet user of the press vehicle will gain a different view of the world. Orphaned by her father at the age of 5, a black child, Dione Moura depended on her seamstress mother’s work to study. Thanks to a benefactor of the family, who she paid without showing up, she got a scholarship at the age of 15 for the scientific course and was able to graduate. Everything she suffered made her become a woman who thinks about inclusion and seeks scholarships for her students. “Because at 15 I had to do it.” According to Dione, a press institution that loses a person through this experience is depriving its reader, its internet user, of that worldview. “This inclusion is not just for those who are included. The black journalist who is not in the media cannot contribute with what she knows, with her experience, with her more diversified and historicized view of the world. It’s the reader, who follows the company on Instagram, everyone loses. That is the question”. According to the teacher, the same occurs with the indigenous journalist. Dione proposes that communication companies invest more in jobs for women, because the white journalists who work in these institutions are not in the best of both worlds either. “There is a lot of precariousness, outsourcing”. She said she hopes newspaper companies decide to employ more women, black and indigenous journalists because the reader goes after where they are. “It is necessary to realize that the loss is not only for the excluded, but for those who exclude as well”, she said.
Agência Brasil
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