In 1985, press censorship was officially banned in Brazil, following the overthrow of a dictatorship that had for decades crippled journalistic freedom. Since then, Brazilian journalists have investigated government corruption and unearthed environmental and social stories with a zeal that made the nation’s watchdog press appear robust. In 2006, Marcelo Baêta, then a graduate student in journalism, changed that impression with his video, Liberdade, Essa Palavra (“Freedom, That Word”), which linked the firing of several reporters in Minas Gerais, one of Brazil’s largest states, to stories they wrote that were critical of Aécio Neves, the state’s powerful and popular governor. Neves is a likely candidate for president in 2010, and so the issue of press manipulation continues to unfold in Brazil. Elizabeth Tuttle spoke with Baêta in July.

How did this project evolve for you?

While I was still a student, the journalism program coordinator sent around an e-mail that she had received anonymously, which listed cases in which the government was reportedly interfering in the press to block negative stories. This interference allegedly caused the dismissal of several journalists from the Globo Minas network, the biggest television network here; the Minas Network, a state network; and Itatiaia, the largest radio station. That’s when I began to research other alleged instances of this kind of suppression.

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