License to Scribble

Matt Harris here yet again. As I am studying Brazil for my final paper I ran across this article on Brazilian journalism. Brazil is beginning to consider a change in the way that people are allowed to become journalist. This is all in an effort to help prevent corruption, but many say that the old system works. This article shows a country that is trying to provide a better media system for it's consumers

I have added a link to a music video by Sergio Mendez( a famed Brazilian musician) and the Black Eyed peas to also show how American musicians cross over to work with musician from other countries. This song is one of my favorites, so I hope you like it too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwWhnudZ5Nk

DON'T FORGET THE ARTICLE.

Licensed to scribble

Oct 23rd 2008 | SÃO PAULO
From The Economist print edition

An end to journalism’s closed shop?

ONE of the many things that remained the same in Brazil when military rule went in 1985 was the need for journalists to obtain a diploma and register with the labour ministry. When the law stipulating this was introduced in 1967, it provided a useful way to prevent troublemakers from voicing their opinions. It has survived because Brazil is often slow to undo such anachronisms, but also because it suits the journalists’ union to keep a closed shop.

Now the Supreme Court is considering whether to strike out the law. At the same time, the ministry of education is pondering whether any Brazilian with a university degree should be granted a diploma that would permit them to scribble (a requirement that would still exclude the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, for a start).

“The quality of journalism in Brazil would suffer if the rules are changed,” asserts Celso Schröder of the National Federation of Journalists. That is questionable. Much of Brazil’s journalism is good and robustly independent, particularly when compared with the media in Mexico or Argentina. But this has less to do with the diplomas that hacks wield than with the competitiveness of the newspaper and magazine market. Though there are only a few widely-available television channels, they too do a fairly good job of reporting what is going on to those who watch the news rather than read it.

The biggest flaw in the Brazilian media concerns the ownership of radio stations and provincial newspapers. According to Donos da Mídia, a monitoring group, 271 politicians (defined as state or federal legislators or mayors) are either directors or partners in media companies. Surprisingly, the two states with the highest incidence of politician-proprietors are Minas Gerais and São Paulo in the developed south-east. No diploma can guarantee reporting that is independent of these mini-Berlusconis.