Bolsonaro Attacks the Press and Predicts “It is Coming to an End”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – President Jair Bolsonaro again criticized the press on Thursday, August 22nd, and said that the newspaper Valor Econômico “will shut down.” The reason, according to the president, is the end of the obligation for publicly traded companies to publish their balance sheets in newspapers, as provided in a provisional measure (PM) issued by his government earlier this month.

The president’s comment was made over breakfast with representatives of the Santa Catarina Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters (ACAERT), at the Palácio do Planalto. “Do you know what I can do? I call the president of Petrobras and say: Come here, (Roberto) Castello Branco. You will display your balance sheet this year in the O Globo newspaper”, said the president, adding that even if it would cost R$10 million (US$2.5 million), he could do so.

“Can I do it or not? Twenty newspaper pages for that (publication of balance sheets). And the Valor Econômico newspaper, which belongs to Globo, will close. Shouldn’t I say so? I shouldn’t, but what is the problem? Will I be a politically correct president?” said Bolsonaro during the meeting.

The PM allows companies with shares on the stock exchange to publish their balance sheets on the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) website or in the Federal Gazette free of charge. In announcing the measure on August 6th, Bolsonaro stated that it was a “retribution” for the treatment he was getting from the press. A decree passed by the president himself in April provided for balance sheets to be published in summary form in newspapers as of 2022.

“There is a dispute with the traditional media, with the mainstream media, about misrepresenting [information],” the president said at the meeting.

Earlier, Bolsonaro discussed the PM during a conversation with journalists. “I took R$1.2 billion from you (journalists) through the publication of balance sheets. It’s not malice. It’s goodwill and justice towards businesspeople, who can’t afford to pay to publish pages and pages that nobody reads. So, they can publish on the CVM’s official website at zero cost,” he said.

The president also said that “the press” is coming to an end just as the typing profession did. “That way, we are helping to prevent deforestation because paper comes from trees. We are in a new era. Just as typing came to an end in the past, the press is also coming to an end. It is not only because of the poor purchasing power of the people. It’s because you can’t find the truth there.”