Amid the censorship, repression, and violence of the military dictatorship, a communications group gains strength and begins to become nationally hegemonic. It sounds contradictory, but it is part of the complex history of Rede Globo, whose main figure is Roberto Marinho.
The company and the journalist are the protagonists of the biography “Roberto Marinho: Globo in the Dictatorship – From Festivals to Bombs at Riocentro”, published by Nova Fronteira. It is the second volume of a trilogy written by journalist and PhD in History Leonencio Nossa.
The author is known for special reports on the Amazon, human rights, and politics. He has won the Esso Prize twice and the Vladimir Herzog for Amnesty and Human Rights five times.
While the first volume, released in 2019, covered the period from Roberto Marinho’s birth in 1904 to the creation of Jornal Nacional in 1967, the second volume picks up from that point, with a focus on the military dictatorship period up to the Riocentro bombing in 1981.
Agência Brasil’s report interviewed Leonencio Nossa by phone about the main themes of the new book, which, according to the author, covers the most intense period of Roberto Marinho’s personal and professional life.
Beyond specific snapshots of Brazilian media, Leonencio hopes the book will help readers reflect critically on authoritarian times and mindsets.
Agência Brasil: Why did you choose Roberto Marinho as the subject of your research?
Leonencio Nossa: My worldview is one of political journalism. There was a moment when I remembered an old project, which was to write a biography of Roberto Marinho. When I was studying at the Federal University of Espírito Santo, the book Chatô: The King of Brazil by Fernando Morais had just been released. It is a biography that will mark the history of biographies in the country. It ends precisely with the decline of Assis Chateaubriand and the rise of Roberto Marinho. And in college, I would say: “Look, someone is going to write that biography, which is a continuation of the new media owner. And time passed, I developed my career in Brasília, and that story was never told in a biography. In 2013, I decided to venture into it. It was also a way to discuss my profession, to discuss the country. Although he is a Rio character who rarely left Rio, his story and that of the group tell a bit of the country’s history. And since there was a large volume of information, I decided to make three books.
AB: What was the research process for the biography like, and what sources did you work with?
LN: I consider three strands in my research process. The first is documentary work, written archives. I searched the National Archive, libraries and archives in the United States, Rio de Janeiro archives, such as those at the Catete Palace, the Senate library, and private archives. And there, I would highlight the Roberto Marinho archive within the Globo Group. I requested a lot of information, and they have a team coordinated by Silvia Fiuza that does this work with a team of historians. Another front is oral testimonies. I sought out the family, the three children, some nephews, and many people who worked and lived with Roberto. And there is my own visual impression of history. As a biographer, the greatest fear is to construct a character that strays from reality. There is the young Roberto Marinho, for example, who is completely unknown even to his own children. I worked with layers of generations to write about him.
AB: In that sense, since you planned a trilogy, is it possible to say that each book presents a different Roberto Marinho? Would there be, at least, three throughout his life?
LN: I would say no. Roberto Marinho is a character without much contradiction, who follows a very pre-established life path. But your question makes me think, because he was a character very involved with his own communications group. I am tempted to assess whether he differentiated much in those periods. Because, first he was the old newspaper, which existed in Rio de Janeiro, and which told the story of people’s lives. Then, he becomes the radio. Just as he also becomes TV. That television, which will be the hallmark of a country, stopped being rural to become more urban. With all the problems, flaws, and violence. I think the products he created help understand the character. That’s why I strayed a bit from the classic biography format to tell the story of the newspaper and then the story of TV. Because telling the story of Globo is telling the story of the character, understanding the soul of a character. Even though it is a company with polyphony, with people who militate in various political fields. But in that variety of voices, you can better understand the character.
AB: And what explains him becoming this man so powerful and influential?
LN: First, there was a very strong base. His father, Irineu, managed to build an innovative vehicle, O Globo. Even though Irineu is considered a minor figure in the historiography of the press, he radically changed the model of making newspapers, by being aimed at suburban people. It had a different language from the newspapers that existed in Rio de Janeiro. And that gaze, which was not for a political or intellectual elite, marked the language of Rádio Globo and then TV Globo. Even today you see Globo as a vehicle that reaches a larger audience.
AB: We are talking about the military dictatorship, and that is one of the points of greatest criticism of Roberto Marinho and Globo’s trajectory. How do you view that relationship?
LN: During the dictatorship era, there was a lot of ambivalence. At the same time that Roberto Marinho positions himself as a supporter of the regime, he has a product, a company, that needs to serve another boss, which is the market. In Brazil, the consumer market emerges and has a real boom in the 1970s. At that point, the conflict with the regime comes in. There is censorship of soap operas, censorship of journalistic programs. And Globo lives that ambivalence. It is a company that has to grow, but at the same time there is a regime and all political discussions.
AB: What kind of reflections do you hope the book will provoke in readers?
LN: I wanted the reader to have knowledge of a country’s history, which lived in the 1970s one of its most difficult periods, which was the authoritarian period. There is political violence, exercised by the State, with deaths and torture. Many generations of artists and journalists acted to reverse that, in very limited circumstances. They tried to resist or turn the game around within their possibilities. I think the book helps understand a bit of what that Brazil of the 1970s was like and the creation of Rede Globo, a company that would become hegemonic in Brazilian life.
Source: Agência Brasil