Government members want to keep journalistic content in PL 2630 – 05/09/2023 – Power

Deputies from the base of the Lula government are pressing to keep the device on journalistic content within the Fake News PL, instead of inserting the excerpts in a project on payment of copyright to artists that is being processed in the Chamber.

The argument of these parliamentarians is that removing the items on remuneration for journalistic content on networks from the project could dehydrate the Fake News PL.

The expectation was that the urgency of the copyright text, by Deputy Jandira Feghali (PC do B-RJ), would be voted on this Tuesday (9). If approved, this project could go to a vote directly in plenary, without having to go through committees. The rapporteur will be in charge of the leader of União Brasil in the Chamber, Elmar Nascimento (BA), ally of President Arthur Lira (PP-AL).

The request, however, was withdrawn from Tuesday’s agenda.

The agreement that was being built provided that, in order to facilitate the approval of the Fake News PL, the devices that deal with both copyright and journalistic content would be removed from the text reported by Orlando Silva (PC do B-SP), party colleague from Jandira.

With the same objective of reducing resistance in the plenary, a group of deputies began to defend the removal of Fake News from the PL and to include in Jandira’s project all items related to remuneration for journalistic content. Governing parliamentarians, however, resist the movement, arguing that it could empty the original text to combat misinformation.

This Tuesday, the leader of the PT in the Chamber, deputy Zeca Dirceu (PR), stated that the urgency of Jandira’s project would only be voted on if it dealt only with the remuneration of copyrights for artists.

“We want to vote, as long as it’s not contaminated by other things, that it’s just to serve the artists. No one can start putting something that has nothing to do with that, no matter how meritorious other things are, such as the remuneration of the journalistic content.”

According to the parliamentarian, no other content should be removed from the Fake News PL. “If you start taking things out of the project, soon there will be no more PL for Fake News.”

This assessment is also shared by members of the Executive. According to an ally of President Lula, there is a fear within the Planalto that the withdrawal of journalistic remuneration from the text could “mischaracterize” the article a lot.

There is disagreement among the vehicles about the form of remuneration for journalistic content provided for in the PL. Entities such as Abert (Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters), Aner (National Association of Magazine Editors) and ANJ (National Association of Newspapers), which brings together the main media outlets, including Sheet, defend the bill; Smaller vehicles fear losing funding because they have less bargaining power.

Author of the copyright project, Jandira Feghali assesses that journalism remuneration is completely linked to the Fake News PL. “Until this moment we have only dealt with the construction of the report [do projeto de sua autoria] copyrighted.”

According to her, there are deputies from the grassroots who consider it possible to include provisions on journalistic remuneration in their text.

“This is a discussion that we are going to have. What we don’t want is to make the [PL] 2630 [conhecido como PL das Fake News]. The 2630 is a priority, it is a question of Brazilian democracy. It is central for us to approve 2630, we cannot weaken it. We feel that taking the copyright out of the 2630 does not weaken the 2630.”

“The journalistic issue we will evaluate with Orlando [Silva], he is measuring this temperature. But if taking away the journalistic content empties the [PL] 2630 and risks wide support, including in society, we are not going to take it away. Let’s leave it there,” continued the deputy.

On Saturday (6), in a lecture in Rio de Janeiro, Orlando Silva confirmed the articulation for the removal of these two points. He said he was sympathetic to the initiative, which could facilitate the approval of the Fake News PL.

“The idea of ​​remuneration for journalism (…) has an objective that, in my opinion, was misunderstood during a debate phase. Is it fair or not fair to recognize a right to remuneration for indexed content? my perception, yes, it is fair, so there it is. How to do it is another debate”, he said.

He pondered that this could empty the Fake News PL debate between deputies.

Such as Sheet showed, the objective of this movement is to clear one of the foci of resistance to the bill. Last Tuesday (2), the congressman asked that the proposal be withdrawn from the agenda, in a movement that sought to prevent a possible defeat of the political articulation of the Lula government.

According to leaders interviewed by the Sheet, the tendency is to look into the merits of Jandira Feghali’s project next week, when Lira will have returned from her trip abroad. There is also an expectation that the Fake News PL will return to the agenda next week, depending on the agreements sewn by the rapporteur to remedy some pockets of resistance, such as issues related to the agency that will oversee big techs.