Al Jazeera: Media barons are behind the coup in Brazil

In Al Jazeera.

Brazil: Behind the Dilma Rousseff impeachment story

What is driving the story in Brazil, corruption or the media? Plus, how messaging apps are reshaping how news is shared.

30 Apr 2016 12:37 GMT | Media, Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, Corruption, Politics

Audiences around the world have seen the images from the Brazilian streets – millions of demonstrators, for and against the president, in dozens of cities, in the biggest political protests in the country’s history.

But is the story really about corruption, and the rampant money laundering of those involved in the Petrobras scandal, because if it is – then how is the main opposition party, many of whose own members have been implicated, in a position to impeach President Dilma Rousseff?

Or is this the story of a political power struggle? And how much of it is being driven by Brazilian media barons, who are conservative and whose ideological hostility to Rousseff’s Workers’ Party is no secret?

Brazil’s most influential broadcast and print outlets – like Globo, Abril and Folha – are media powerhouses owned by a handful of the country’s richest families.

Those outlets have been called out for their selective and strategic coverage of this impeachment story and accused of trying to use the corruption scandal to unseat a government that 50 million Brazilians voted for less than two years ago.

In an attempt to change the narrative, President Rousseff held a private media briefing with journalists from major international outlets – letting them know that there is more to this story – and its coverage – than meets the eye.

We analyse coverage of the impeachment vote against President Rousseff, the political power struggle behind it, and the media powerhouses shaping the Brazilian news narrative.

Talking us through the Brazil impeachment story are: Fabio Zanini, political editor, Folha de São Paulo; Alex Cuadros, journalist and author of Brazillionaires; Olga Bailey, lecturer, Nottingham Trent University; and Jairo Lugo-Ocando, professor of journalism, University of Sheffield.

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