RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Brazil’s head of state has decided to take a practical stance against what he deems to be unsubstantiated attacks by the media against his government, and by doing so is imitating once more American president Trump.
He said during an interview with ‘Brasil Urgente’ host José Luiz Datena, that he would have all subscriptions to the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper by the federal government canceled.
The “Folha de S. Paulo” is one of the largest daily newspapers in Brazil and reports critically on Bolsonaro’s presidency.
For Bolsonaro, the newspaper’s content “poisons the government” and does not, in fact, provide journalistic information. The president rejected this as censorship since there is no legal provision requiring the government to maintain its media subscriptions.
At the same time, he openly threatened those companies that advertise in the respected daily newspaper: They were supposed to “watch out”.
“I determined that the entire federal government terminate and cancel its subscriptions to Folha de S.Paulo. My order is that no department from my government will get Folha de S.Paulo newspaper here in Brasília. The order has been set. It’s what I can do, but nothing more,” Bolsonaro said.
Jair Bolsonaro’s decision is symbolic, but it could represent a tremendous loss for Folha, given the influence he has over millions of voters, which could also mean a “green light” for the people who support him to follow his lead.
Bolsonaro is at war with much of the Brazilian press. This week, in a video, he insulted the TV station Globo, which had mentioned Bolsonaro in connection with the murder of the left-wing city councilor Marielle Franco from Rio de Janeiro.
This ‘insolence’ on the part of the Globo Group, Latin America’s largest and most powerful media house, caused the president’s overzealous son Eduardo to publicly announce that tools like the AI-5 of the military dictatorship should be reintroduced into Brazil.