Anunciando a cor: Jogo jogado no Times

Postado por Luiz Weis em Verbo Solto

Onze dias antes do que os americanos chamam Super-Terça, ou Terça-Tsunami – as eleições primárias numa vintena de Estados para a escolha dos delegados democratas e republicanos às convenções nacionais que indicarão os respectivos candidatos à Casa Branca, em novembro deste ano – o New York Times põe hoje as cartas na mesa.

Anuncia que endossa as candidaturas da senadora Hillary Clinton (democrata) e do senador John McCain (republicano). Explica por que em dois textos – o primeiro com 1147 palavras, o outro com 737.

Não, aparentemente, que McCain mereça menos espaço que Hillary – as razões do apoio, em cada caso, ocuparam o que tinham de ocupar. Dois textos de igual tamanho, o jornal parece dizer, configurariam uma igualdade abstrata.

O interessante, para o observador de mídia, é que em nenhum momento se lê que “o jornal” é que apoia a mulher do ex-presidente Clinton e o ex-prisioneiro de guerra no Vietnã.

Numa prova de escrúpulo, o endosso vem do editorial board do NYT – o seu comitê editorial ou editoria de editoriais. Presumivelmente, os responsáveis pelas opiniões do jornal têm afinidades políticas e outras tantas com os controladores da empresa que o edita, em especial com o publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr, filho do publisher anterior, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, por sua vez filho do publisher anterior, Arthur Hays Sulzberger – tudo em família desde 1896.

Mas os editorial boards dos grandes jornais dos Estados Unidos e de outros países com a mesma tradição têm uma autonomia de dar inveja ao pessoal das páginas editoriais brasileiras – pago em primeiro lugar para pôr em letra de forma o que o dono do jornal acha da vida e de suas implicações, como se diz. Da rédea curta não escapam nem os seus editores, que operam mais como principais redatores e fechadores do espaço.

Perde com isso o leitor porque o resultado peca pela falta de matiz, mão leve e diversidade. Com as proverbiais raras exceções, na mídia brasileira editorial é monolito.

Por exemplo. Se estivessemos em 2010 e os dois principais partidos brasileiros estivessem escolhendo à americana os seus candidatos à sucessão de Lula, e um dos grandes jornais achasse que era o caso de endossar um de cada lado, não seria um “comitê editorial” que escolheria os seus preferidos e assumiria o apoio. Seria o dono da publicação, sob o eufemismo “nós”, ou o nome do jornal.

Sem falar que o apoio manifesto dos jornais americanos (ou britânicos) a candidatos a cargos eletivos - prática tradicional por ali – pouco tende a influir no noticiário eleitoral: as redações continuariam a ir atrás dos podres dos candidatos e suas campanhas.

O caso clássico é o do Wall Street Journal (pelo menos até ser comprado pelo megaempresário de mídia Rupert Murdoch). Invariavelmente, o seu “comitê editorial” apoia candidatos republicanos ou o mais conservador dos candidatos democratas.

Mas ninguém que se interesse de perto por política nos Estados Unidos pode acompanhar uma disputa presidencial sem ler, com alguma frequência, o Journal – pela isenção, qualidade e desassombro do seu noticiário político.

Aqui, a norma não escrita dos jornalões manda tratar diferentemente os políticos – colher de chá para os “nossos”, pimenta malagueta para os outros. É uma versão simplificada de como as coisas funcionam na imprensa brasileira. Mas não é uma invenção.

Luiz Weis Jornalista, pós-graduado em Ciências Sociais pela USP, onde lecionou Sociologia da Comunicação.

Escreve no Observatório da Imprensa e no jornal "O Estado de S.Paulo".

Entre outras atividades, foi redator-chefe das revistas "Superinteressante" e "IstoÉ", editor-assistente da "Veja", editor político e apresentador do programa "Perspectiva" da TV Cultura, editor nacional da "Visão" e editor de assuntos especiais da "Realidade".

É autor, com Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida, de "Carro-zero e pau-de-arara: o cotidiano da oposição de classe média ao regime militar, in "História da Vida Privada no Brasil", Lilia Moritz Schwarcz (org.), 1998, e do perfil político de Vladimir Herzog (sem título), in "Vlado — Retrato da morte de um homem e de uma época, Paulo Markun (org.), 1985.

Recebeu o Prêmio Esso de Jornalismo Científico, em 1990.

Editorial do The New York Times defende etanol brasileiro

O influente jornal norte-americano disse hoje no seu editorial que o etanol dos Estados-Unidos, produzido a partir do milho, é caro, subsidiado e encarece os alimentos contribuindo pesadamente com a inflação. Para o jornal seria melhor importar o etanol brasileiro, feito a partir de cana-de-açúcar e que é mais econômico. O governo Bush, ao contrário, taxa o etanol brasileiro e financia duplamente os produtores de milho norte-americanos, critica o jornal.

Editorial The New York Times

The High Costs of Ethanol

Backed by the White House, corn-state governors and solid blocks on both sides of Congress’s partisan divide, the politics of biofuels could hardly look sunnier. The economics of the American drive to increase ethanol in the energy supply are more discouraging.

American corn-based ethanol is expensive. And while it can help cut oil imports and provide modest reductions in greenhouse gases compared to conventional gasoline, corn ethanol also carries considerable risks. Even now as Europe and China join the United States in ramping up production, world food prices are rising, threatening misery for the poorest countries.

The European Union has announced that it wants to replace 10 percent of its transport fuel with biofuels by 2020. China is aiming for a 15 percent share. The United States is already on track to exceed Congress’s 2005 goal of doubling the amount of ethanol used in motor fuels to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush set a new goal of 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2017. In June, the Senate raised it to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Of that, Congress said that 15 billion gallons should come from corn and 21 billion from advanced biofuels that are nowhere near commercial production.

The distortions in agricultural production are startling. Corn prices are up about 50 percent from last year, while soybean prices are projected to rise up to 30 percent in the coming year, as farmers have replaced soy with corn in their fields. The increasing cost of animal feed is raising the prices of dairy and poultry products.

The news from the rest of the world is little better. Ethanol production in the United States and other countries, combined with bad weather and rising demand for animal feed in China, has helped push global grain prices to their highest levels in at least a decade. Earlier this year, rising prices of corn imports from the United States triggered mass protests in Mexico. The chief of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that rising food prices around the world have threatened social unrest in developing countries.

A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an economic forum of rich nations, called on the United States and other industrialized nations to eliminate subsidies for the production of ethanol which, the report said, is driving up food costs, threatening natural habitats and imposing other environmental costs. “The overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel,” it said.

The economics of corn ethanol have never made much sense. Rather than importing cheap Brazilian ethanol made from sugar cane, the United States slaps a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on ethanol from Brazil. Then the government provides a tax break of 51 cents a gallon to American ethanol producers — on top of the generous subsidies that corn growers already receive under the farm program.

Corn-based ethanol also requires a lot of land. An O.E.C.D. report two years ago suggested that replacing 10 percent of America’s motor fuel with biofuels would require about a third of the total cropland devoted to cereals, oilseeds and sugar crops.

Meanwhile, the environmental benefits are modest. A study published last year by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, estimated that after accounting for the energy used to grow the corn and turn it into ethanol, corn ethanol lowers emissions of greenhouse gases by only 13 percent.

The United States will not meet the dual challenges of reducing global warming and its dependence on foreign suppliers of energy until it manages to reduce energy consumption. That should be its main goal.

There is nothing wrong with developing alternative fuels, and there is high hope among environmentalists and even venture capitalists that more advanced biofuels — like cellulosic ethanol — can eventually play a constructive role in reducing oil dependency and greenhouse gases. What’s wrong is letting politics — the kind that leads to unnecessary subsidies, the invasion of natural landscapes best left alone and soaring food prices that hurt the poor — rather than sound science and sound economics drive America’s energy policy.

The New York Times gratuito na internet, os assinantes receberão o dinheiro de volta

Times to Stop Charging for Parts of Its Web Site

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight tonight.

The move comes two years to the day after The Times began the subscription program, TimesSelect, which has charged $49.95 a year, or $7.95 a month, for online access to the work of its columnists and to the newspaper’s archives. TimesSelect has been free to print subscribers to The Times and to some students and educators.

In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.

The Times said the project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue.

“But our projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” said Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of the site, NYTimes.com.

What changed, The Times said, was that many more readers started coming to the site from search engines and links on other sites instead of coming directly to NYTimes.com. These indirect readers, unable to get access to articles behind the pay wall and less likely to pay subscription fees than the more loyal direct users, were seen as opportunities for more page views and increased advertising revenue.

“What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others,” Ms. Schiller said.

The Times’s site has about 13 million unique visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, far more than any other newspaper site. Ms. Schiller would not say how much increased Web traffic the paper expects by eliminating the charges, or how much additional ad revenue the move was expected to generate.

Those who have paid in advance for access to TimesSelect will be reimbursed on a prorated basis. More...