‘You can’t do journalism playing for the audience’, says Araújo – 03/06/2023 – Mônica Bergamo

This Monday (5), Adriana Araújo debuts alongside Eduardo Oinegue on the bench of Jornal da Band, which has been completely redesigned, from the setting to the content. At the station for almost a year and a half, the journalist already commanded the local news program Boa Tarde São Paulo, which was short-lived, and presented several editions of Canal Livre. She celebrates the good phase, after her tumultuous departure from Record in early 2021. Her disagreements with the direction of journalism at the house became public, and Adriana became one of the preferred targets of Bolsonaristas on social networks.

“I had good opportunities at Record, but the last few years there were very difficult”, she says, in an interview held at the Band’s headquarters in São Paulo. The bone of contention was the way the broadcaster handled the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Millions of people were going through a critical public health situation in the world, not just here in Brazil. There’s no way you can’t disagree with coverage that goes towards omission. Nor how to guide your parents or grandparents to take some precautions and then , as a public person, in front of the cameras, to misinform. That, for me, is unacceptable.”

“My internal disagreements and the fact that I positioned myself on social networks caused me problems, including my dismissal”, she continues. “20, 30 years from now, I want to look back and feel that when I walked through one of the most critical moments the world has ever experienced, I was on the right side of history, even if it’s not heroism. What can I say? it’s just that I sleep peacefully with the positions I’ve taken. I don’t regret any of them.”

At the age of 22, Adriana from Minas Gerais was already a reporter for Jornal Nacional (Globo) in Belo Horizonte. She remained in the role for seven years and was then transferred to Brasília, where she covered the entire end of FHC’s second term (PSDB) and Lula’s (PT) first. In 2006, she joined Record. Over the next 15 years, she managed to build a prominent career in television journalism, even outside the largest broadcaster in the country.

“Globo is a great school. It has a structure to make you succeed. Far from that umbrella, you have to relearn how to be professional, as a journalist working in the market. It was challenging, but I am proud of the steps I took. “

Adriana is alarmed at media outlets that deliberately distort reality, in order to only give the version that her audience wants to hear. “You don’t do journalism playing for the audience. If you rely on social media, you forget what news is.”

Over nearly three decades of her career, Adriana Araújo also claims to have experienced sexual harassment. “There is no professional woman who has not been abused. I was never harassed by any boss, but I went through it in Congress. I was 30 years old when I arrived in Brasília. Once, a congressman tried to forcefully kiss me in the waiting room of a office. At that moment, I didn’t say anything. I was afraid of making the news. Today, with almost 50, my behavior would be different.”

All these professional challenges seem small compared to what she faced in her personal life. Her daughter Giovanna was born with fibular hemimelia. A rare orthopedic syndrome where the person is missing the fibula or where the leg bone is poorly developed. Neurological functions are not affected, but fingers may be absent: Giovanna has only seven on her hands and another seven on her feet, distributed irregularly.

Now 25 years old and studying the last year of medicine, the young woman had to undergo ten surgeries throughout her life. She was discharged at 18 and now walks normally, with full balance and without the aid of crutches. But of course it wasn’t easy. Adriana raised her daughter alone for a long time, and describes the whole process in her book “Sou a Mãe Dela” (ed. Globo), published in 2020.

“When Giovanna was born, in 1997, there was no way to type ‘fibular hemimelia’ into Google. I had to send an email to a hospital in the United States to find out more, and the response took a long time”, he recalls. “It is obvious that technological advances have made research much more agile. Today you connect with people in the same situation with great ease. My book was still on pre-sale, and I was already receiving messages from mothers who went through challenges similar or even more serious. This is the good side of social networks.”

“I was afraid to show the book to Giovanna. I would never publish anything without my daughter’s authorization, because this story is also hers”, he admits. “At first, she resisted the idea. But then she read it all in less than 24 hours, and then she said to me: ‘You can publish it, you have a book’.”

“She imagined a text written by a reporter, in chronological order. But, in fact, it is a book about feelings. It is not a story of heroines or victims, but of two girls who walk together.”

“It seems that a person who is on TV has the perfect life. They are always made up, well dressed, and the role of anchor has social status. I wanted to demystify all that. I wanted to say: ‘Look, I’m the one who appears on television , but I have a story that you don’t know. I am the mother of a girl who was born with a disability.”

Giovanna would be right-handed, but she trained to be left-handed and use her left hand, the only one with five fingers. As a little girl, she tried to wear a prosthesis on her right. She did not adapt, and managed to develop the movements of the other hand on her own. As an adult and studying to be a doctor, a new problem appeared: the lack of surgical gloves for people like her.

Adriana is enthusiastic about the subject. “We got custom-made gloves for Giovanna. I spent more than a year hearing ‘no’ until I found a supplier in Malaysia. The molds are made there and then sent to a factory in São Roque, in the interior of São Paulo. I told this story in the book, and today other doctors with hand impairments have followed the same path. Each of them needs a specific cast.”

“I don’t think it’s acceptable to say ‘no’ to someone just because they were born with two fingers. ‘You can’t be a doctor because you don’t have gloves’. I went crazy the day they told me that. Because inclusion is saying yes. It’s asking the person: ‘What is your special need?’, ‘What is your disability?’, ‘What can I do for you to be incorporated into the world, be productive and use your talents?'”

Adriana ends the conversation saying she is excited about her debut on “JoBa”, the internal nickname of Jornal da Band. “I’m not the only new one. The scenario and format were reformulated. But it’s not a complete change, because the newspaper already has a very important brand. Jornal da Band shows the strength it has in times of crisis, as was the pandemic. The viewer trusts, because he knows that we are on the side of information.”

Already with Lula’s third presidency, she demonstrates a cautious optimism. “Being a journalist in Brazil during this government is easier. I think it’s not just me who is feeling this. The people who are in Brasília, on the front line, covering the Palácio da Alvorada, have a more professional relationship with the sources. “

“It will still take us a few years to understand the madness we live in. The lack of common sense [do ex-presidente Jair Bolsonaro, do PL], the lack of understanding of what it is to preside over a country. It is necessary to look in the rearview mirror and take stock, but it is also important that the new government understands that there is a road ahead that needs to be paved. We went through a pandemic, children were not literate, the economy has to grow again. It is still not possible to say that life has improved with the Lula government.”