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On Thursday, the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil voted to convict former president Jair Bolsonaro of plotting a coup to overturn his election loss in 2022 to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The trial, held inside a modernist cylindrical structure known familiarly as the igrejinha, or “little church,” lasted a little over a week, and was a media sensation. Five hundred and one journalists were accredited to cover it, eighty of whom were allowed inside the actual court building on any given day. 

The logistics alone were maddening: the interminably long days and sometimes inscrutable jargon of the justices created challenges for even the most experienced reporters, who carried with them the burden of capturing history as it unfolded. Bolsonaro is the first former Brazilian president to be convicted for attacking the country’s democratic process. He was sentenced to twenty-seven years and three months in prison, although his attorneys are expected to ask for house arrest. These accounts have been translated from the Portuguese and edited for length and clarity.

Flávia Maia, Jota Info
Of course, every case that goes to the Supreme Court is decisive. There are always going to be big societal repercussions. But this one is different. Often, these trials concern different groups and sectors. I can remember cases that dealt with Indigenous lands, or with agriculture. With this, however, it really feels like all of Brazilian society has been divided into two groups: those who like Bolsonaro and those who don’t. 

Weslley Galzo, O Estado de S. Paulo
It’s a historic event, and there’s a lot of people there, journalists from the whole world. The way I see it, I need to find something different from what everybody is already saying, something that’s interesting enough for us to cover, but that our competitors aren’t looking into. You have to have a lot of energy. I haven’t slept well in weeks. I go to bed late and wake up early. I haven’t been going to the gym and I haven’t been eating well. It demands a lot from you. 

Manoela Alcântara, Metrópoles
We have to get there really early and stay until very late, but dealing with the number of people there is a bigger challenge. There are journalists everywhere: there’s always someone about to go live on television, or lining up to get their credentials in the morning. Then there are the drones, the metal detectors, the sniffer dogs. It is totally atypical because this is a big moment, not just for Brazil but for the world.

José Marques, Folha de S. Paulo
Before we go in, the police do a full sweep of the building. The judicial branch has a special police force called the Judiciary Police, so in addition to the group that oversees the security of the Supreme Court, they’ve also called on officers from other courts for backup, thirty of whom sleep in bunk beds to monitor the building overnight.

Maia
People who cover the judicial branch have certain restrictions that those in the executive branch don’t have. Whereas judges don’t want to be out there in the media all that much, politicians are interested in having a public presence. So we have to work hard to access behind-the-scenes information. Building sources in here takes time.

Marques
This is all taking place in an annex of the main Supreme Court building. Eighty journalists get to be there, as well as lawyers, advisers, the justices. So that’s who gets to watch in person. Downstairs, there are screens. Lawyers come in and out. TV people are often there because you can’t film upstairs. Only TV Justiça, the judicial branch’s broadcaster, gets to do that. So we can’t take pictures. We also can’t clap or boo, and our phones have to be on silent. Plus, when the judge enters or leaves the room, we all have to stand. 

Galzo
I started covering the Supreme Court when I was twenty-two. Now I’m twenty-six, but when I first got here, getting access to the justices was difficult. Trying to get coffee with them to introduce myself—as well as trying to build sources here, not just with the judges, but also with their people—was not easy. It’s not the same as when you’re dealing with politicians. Even if you run into a Supreme Court justice in the hallway, which is rare, you can’t approach them the same way you would a congressman or a senator.

Marques
The advantage of being there, where the trial is actually happening, is that we can monitor the reactions of the justices and the lawyers. Something we tend to do is watch the lawyers when they’re on edge, like when a justice is about to cast their vote. If they’re frustrated, you can find that person after and they can be a little more, let’s say, sincere. These days the defendants aren’t going anymore, but when they were there, we’d try to catch them during breaks, like when they’re on their way to the bathroom. We’re in a controlled environment, but it’s not that controlled. 

Galzo
You can’t take water into the room, so there’s a place outside where people serve water and coffee. Sometimes you’re there and a lawyer is also there, and that’s an opportunity to talk to them. 

Maia
On Wednesday, when one of the Supreme Court justices, Luiz Fux, read out his vote, we knew that he would break with the other judges, but the hard part was understanding its complexity. There was a lot of legal jargon in it. It was 429 pages long. Can you imagine trying to understand on page one what the rationale he was trying to build in 429 pages was? We had fragments, and using those fragments we tried to piece together where he was trying to go. In addition to being a journalist, I have a law degree, which helps. But in this case it was really just grasping the construction of his argument that was difficult. 

Galzo
I have trouble remembering a vote that lasted that long. The session was meant to start at 9[am] and end at 2[pm]. He ended up talking for twelve and a half hours.

Maia
Of course we get tired in the meantime. 

Galzo
I was so hungry. At 9:30, the paper sent me something from McDonald’s. 

Maia
Historically, people haven’t followed the Supreme Court this closely. Now it’s common to know the names of the different justices. It feels like a big social change.

Alcântara
We try to stick as much to the moment, to the facts, as possible. After the decision, after the fact and the sequence of events that unfolds after that, different versions of what happened will emerge. And different people will see it differently. Regardless, this will all go down in history.

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