"The average Brazilian journalist does not feel able to write freely. Beyond having to follow the editorial line of the publications they work for, the complaints principally have to do with coercion by political or business groups."
The Revista Imprensa Online, or "online press review" (Brazil) reports on a recent survey sponsored by the British-Brazilian Cultural Center of São Paulo and an Editora Abril-sponsored journalism training course on the state of the journalism profession in contemporary Brazil.
Quite a lot of money is invested in academic programs teaching the principles of "Journalism 2.0" these days — Stanford's institute on innovation journalism, just to start with, and the University of Navarra's Masters [sic] em Jornalismo program in Brazil.
Many appear to be closely associated with extreme-right political ideologies of the kind that produced the "parallel inquest" into the 11-M attacks in Spain — "ETA did it!" — and the Telemadrid scandal — "ETA did it!".
"Aiming to "influence" decision makers from Mexico to Brazil, the former president Spain, José María Aznar, identified those he considers "enemies of the West," among them indigenous peoples' movements, terrorists and anti-globalization activists," reported Mexico''''s La Jornada daily recently, for example.
Their business plan is to groom young, unseasoned journalists as editorial managers for rapid promotion into key positions. That is why you see so many "innovation journalists" and "content managers" with marketing degrees and a sudden transition from PR jobs to editorial management in news organizations.
Case in point: the Wolfowitz-Cheney press relations aide at the World Bank who resigned ahead of his boss. Kellems calls himself "a former journalist," but his resume reflects a career almost entirely dedicated to political marketing.
In banana republics, journalism and political marketing are the same thing.
If it reminds you of the U.S. Dept. of Justice under Alberto Gonzalez — Monica Goodling graduated from a law school owned by an extremist "Christian" broadcaster — well, that is not necessarily a coincidence.
Translation and commentary follows