Centenary of birth of Cláudio Abramo is celebrated – 05/04/2023 – Politics

A man of left-wing convictions, sympathetic to Trotskyism, Cláudio Abramo (1923-1987) was one of the people most responsible, perhaps the greatest, for the radical renewal of what he, intellectually trained in Marxism, called the bourgeois press. The centenary of Abramo’s birth is celebrated this Thursday (6).

The contrast between the political ideal and professional practice does not advance to the field of contradiction because it is based, with pragmatism, on his understanding that “the rules of the game” should always be respected.

He was referring to respect for the doctrinal principles of newspapers, dictated by capitalism. By offering a common thread to his intense and turbulent trajectory, the expression between quotation marks gives the title to his posthumous book of memoirs.

Fame and fame preceded the journalist. He was tall, handsome, with graceful gestures, he looked like a Florentine nobleman, in the description of Paulo Francis, who considered him an older brother. Sarcastic nobleman and troublemaker, would add Mario Sergio Conti, columnist for Sheetin “News from the Plateau”.

It was still, admittedly, authoritative, explosive, and idiosyncratic. Abramo was all of those things, yes, but he was above all intelligent, as both point out.

Such attributes earned him disciples and enemies in the vehicles he went through, mainly in O Estado de S. Paulo and in this Sheetnewspapers in which his presence was decisive in setting up editorial reforms, whose foundations, incorporated in later projects, have resisted the test of time.

With little schooling, Abramo was a self-taught person who trained as a humanist by reading, in the original, classics of world literature and works that preached the socialist revolution, available at his home.

Mastering Italian, English and French, he started in journalism working in Allied propaganda during the Second World War (1939-1945), before being hired by Estadão in 1948.

After four years working as a reporter and editor, he takes over the direction of the newsroom and begins the reform of the newspaper. Among other measures, he ensures greater balance in the news, adopts modern production control practices and anticipates closing the edition by three hours, to midnight.

It also starts to hire university students from other areas, transforming them into talented journalists, who raise the intellectual level of the morning newspaper.

It fails to convince the owners to publish news about Brazil on the cover. There, only information about international politics entered, something that the journalist attributed to the “recondite colonialism” of those who held the power of decision. But he got around the situation by creating the Last Page, centered on Brazilian affairs, “which immediately became page number one”.

Nor did he interfere with the editorials, which he classified as “medieval” or “antediluvian”, as they defended the interests of the São Paulo and Brazilian ruling classes, in that order. But in this area there was nothing to be done – it was the rule of the game.

Abramo’s departure from O Estado de S. Paulo took place when, in 1962, the Mesquita family, which owned the newspaper, approached military and civilian personnel who were planning a coup against President João Goulart.

There was pressure against him from army officers who were part of the conspiracy, and in July 1963 Abramo resigned.

The following day, introduced by a mutual friend, he met Octavio Frias de Oliveira, who had bought the company less than a year ago. Sheet in society.

The conversation did not prosper, and Abramo, in a brief passage of his biography, took on the advice of Carvalho Pinto, Minister of Finance, a conservative voice in the Jango government, who would not last in office until the end of that year.

At the same time, the journalist was hired, with “the highest salary in the Brazilian press”, to reform the inexpressive tabloid A Nação. But he judged him beyond the possibility of salvation. He dismissed almost the entire editorial staff of 200 journalists and closed the newspaper in January 1964, shortly before the coup.

Unemployed and with no prospect of work, he was sought out again by Frias in the second half of that year. He started to produce daily analyzes on the Sheetbut without appearing in the newspaper.

At the beginning of the following year, he assumed the role of head of production and was received by a petition signed by the newsroom, led by managers opposed to his hiring.

Abramo imposed himself, but in the first years little was done – the company, more concerned with obtaining financial stability and settling debts, did not invest in the newsroom.

Newspaper at the time without relevance, the Sheet would pass at the turn of the 70s for a period that Abramo considered dark. “The newspaper was unable to withstand pressure from the government and, therefore, did not provoke”, he noted in his memoirs. Unhappy with the narrow leeway, he ended up being removed from the directorship in 1972.

Until the beginning of 1974, Abramo continued, in his words, “leaning against the Sheet“, when the opportunity for an editorial turn arose.

At the time, Frias decided to bet on the political opening envisaged by the future president, Ernesto Geisel, and directed the newspaper to take the place of a representative of civil society in this process, starting the following year.

For Otavio Frias Filho (1957-2018), who would become editorial director ten years later, one of the factors that contributed to the success of the project was the presence of Abramo, the “right person” to carry it out.

With its prestige, it hired leading professionals, such as Francis and Alberto Dines, and attracted intellectuals from various ideological currents, who began to collaborate in the newly created opinion pages, whose spirit and plasticity are preserved, in essence, almost half a century later. .

Abramo’s career as a newsroom director came to an abrupt halt in 1977, when he was caught in the crossfire of a power struggle in Brasilia.

A columnist for the newspaper, Lourenço Diaféria, was arrested after publishing a text mocking the Duque de Caxias, patron of the Army. In protest, the Sheet published his blank column, in a decision in which Abramo was voted out.

The hard wing of the government, which was opposed to political distension, put pressure on the newspaper, and Abramo –who had been arrested in 1975, accused of subversion– was removed from office. Less than a month later, the Minister of the Army, Sylvio Frota, pivotal to the crisis, was dismissed by Geisel.

Replaced by Boris Casoy, who continued his management, Abramo remained in Sheet, writing editorials and as a member of the Editorial Board. In the 1979 journalists’ strike, he entered the newspaper’s building, but did not work, displeasing both sides.

Then left the Sheet to make Jornal da República, which lasted only five months, when he was also in charge of Leia Livros, a publication created in partnership with Editora Brasiliense in 1978.

With the end of Jornal da República, Abramo returned to Sheetfirst to act as a correspondent in London and Paris and, from 1984, as the holder of an influential daily opinion column, which he would write until he died, in 1987, at the age of 64.

Disillusioned with the political scene, marked by a still unfinished redemocratization, and with journalism, where he believed he did not have a space compatible with his importance, Abramo gave vent to his bitterness, counterbalanced by reflections that helped later generations of journalists to understand the public dimension of profession.

“There is no specific ethics for journalists; their ethics are the same as for citizens,” he taught. He also said that there is no objective journalism, but several, and it is the journalist’s obligation to find out what is considered objective in the company he works for.

From his typewriter came the definition of journalism as the daily exercise of intelligence and character – this is Cláudio Abramo’s rule.