How
not to write about Rio
International
media should shelve tired clichés and pay attention to local
struggles pre- and post-Olympics.
By
Cerianne Robertson
8/3/16, 5:29 AM CET
RIO DE JANEIRO —
With an estimated 30,000 journalists set to descend on Rio de Janeiro
to cover the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we can expect samba
beats, aerial beach shots and moving stories of superhuman athletic
feats to dominate international media coverage. We’re also sure to
see a number of predictable mistakes: false information, sensational
reporting on violence and poverty and, as the Games come to a close,
the usual rush to label them a resounding “success.”
Foreign journalists
unfamiliar with Rio have already made bewilderingly incorrect claims.
Rio is not the capital of Brazil, as a surprising number of articles
have suggested. According to Australia’s Herald Sun, 75 percent of
Rio residents live in favelas. The actual figure is closer to 25
percent. The error must have left Aussie athletes a little nervous,
especially when the Australian Olympic Committee categorically
labeled favelas as dangerous “no-go zones.” USA Today claimed 40
percent of Rio favela residents use crack — a terrifying suggestion
and, of course, an enormous exaggeration.
“Slum” is a
lazy translation; these working class communities are not all
impoverished.
These errors reflect
an already inescapable cliché: Rio’s favela neighborhoods are the
city’s “infamous,” or “notorious,” “underbelly.” These
overused, sensationalist phrases need to be retired.
Yes, most favelas
lack adequate sewage infrastructure, and some favelas are sites of
drug trafficking and violence — symptoms of decades of government
neglect alternating with government oppression. But contrary to what
fans of “City of God” or “Elite Squad” or the Daily Mail
might imagine, less than 1 percent of favela residents are involved
in trafficking. Most favelas have no trafficking presence at all.
Paramilitary police
personnel man a checkpoint on a bridge in the Cidade de Deus
shantytown, 10km from the Olympic Village Rio de Janeiro | Tony
Barros/AFP via Getty Images
Paramilitary police
personnel man a checkpoint on a bridge in the Cidade de Deus
shantytown, 10km from the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro | Tony
Barros/AFP via Getty Images
“Slum” is a lazy
translation; these working class communities are not all
impoverished. And most homes are built sturdily of brick, so
“shantytown” is a misnomer too.
If there’s one
thing that can shift this narrative, it’s the proliferating network
of social media savvy community journalists and activists from the
favelas and the city’s periphery. They denounce human rights
violations and abandoned promises of a brilliant Olympic legacy. They
document the diversity, communal memory, identities and resistance of
these historically marginalized neighborhoods.
The more
international journalists engage with these community leaders, the
more meaningful and informed foreign reporting on the city’s
Olympic moment will be.
* * *
Despite these
missteps, the international press has done good work in highlighting
the gap between the government’s rosy rhetoric and the more
complicated reality. There have been some excellent investigative and
news pieces about pre-Olympic Rio that explore citizens’ day-to-day
experiences in a transforming city and examine what is driving
development. A Guardian interview with billionaire Olympics developer
Carlos Carvalho sparked reactions from Brazilian media and the mayor
when Carvalho admitted his desire to create a city “of good taste”
by excluding the poor.
The media is
compiling evidence that the average Brazilian doesn’t stand to gain
much from the Games, and that claims the event would create a better,
more modern city for all were always a brazen bluff.
In response to the
scrutiny, Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes felt compelled to respond with
no less than three opinion pieces in English-language outlets this
July, to dispute “all the pessimism.”
But, sadly, much of
the reporting unabashedly neglects the average Rio resident and
focuses exclusively on potential threats to Olympic athletes and
tourists. Articles decry sewage in the water because it may affect
the athletes, not because it has destroyed the livelihoods of
fishermen or because it poses a serious health risk to locals.
If there’s one
mistake … international media should avoid, it is letting the big
sporting event overshadow critical narratives
Journalists ponder
whether athletes and tourists will be safe, without reflecting on why
Rio’s crime and violence rates are so high in the first place, or
questioning what effect an expanded force of 85,000 security officers
will have in a city where killings by police are a common occurrence.
Olympic rings
made of recycled materials are illuminated in the early morning at
Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro
If there’s one
mistake that international media should avoid, it is letting the big
sporting event overshadow critical narratives, and then abandoning
them completely once the circus leaves town.
This has happened
before. Ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, the media openly questioned
the monetary and social costs of hosting the event. Brazil-wide
protests in 2013 helped ensure local activists’ questions of “World
Cup for who?” and “At what cost?” were picked up by
international press.
A member of the
Puerto Rico women's Olympic volleyball team takes a "selfie"
photograph during a team training session in Rio de Janeiro |
Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
A member of the
Puerto Rico women’s Olympic volleyball team takes a “selfie”
photograph during a team training session in Rio de Janeiro |
Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
Then, following an
immensely entertaining football tournament — in which Brazil
suffered a bitter loss to Germany in the semi-finals —
international headlines like this one from the New York Times
proclaimed, “Success for Brazil, just not on the field.”
Similarly, Bloomberg News predicted “Brazil’s success at hosting
World Cup bodes well for Olympics,” while the BBC examined “How
Brazil silenced its critics.”
“Will it be
ready?” hysteria always precedes major events. As a result, the
host country receives praise for simply seeing the event through from
start to finish.
Before the 2014
World Cup, thousands of families were removed to clear the way for
infrastructure. At least eight construction workers died during
preparations, a newly constructed overpass bridge collapsed and
killed two people, activists were preemptively arrested, protesters
were tear-gassed — the real answer to “How Brazil silenced its
critics” — and Brazilian taxpayers were left with an enormous
bill.
Media outlets
are quick to claim these types of events a success based on
unspecified — but apparently low — standards.
In declaring the
tournament to be an unequivocal “success” for Brazil, the
international media failed to do its job. As mega-events geographer
Christopher Gaffney observed, “the pessimists were either shunted
aside, swept up in the euphoria, or never interviewed again.”
This shift in
discourse is typical. Media outlets are quick to claim these types of
events a success based on unspecified — but apparently low —
standards.
Political scientist
Jules Boykoff examined Canadian coverage of the Vancouver 2010
Olympics and found that reports before the Games were more critical
and inclusive of dissenting views, whereas as the event wrapped up,
media “championed the Olympics as a success.”
This superficial
treatment is a serious problem. It whitewashes the immense economic
and socio-political side-effects of hosting a mega-event. It
reassures future hosts that they too will not be held accountable to
their bold bid claims. Blind, celebratory discourse hinders efforts
to demand meaningful change in the way these events are held.
In a city like Rio,
a verdict of “success” would undermine the legitimacy and urgency
of the population’s ongoing struggles as an economic crisis erodes
public services. It would set back the significant work done by
activists to draw attention to these pressing issues.
Journalists should
not abandon critical reporting during and after the Games. Only by
continuing to ask tough questions will they empower Rio’s civil
society and bring about the reform mega-events desperately need.
Cerianne Robertson
is research coordinator for Catalytic Communities, a Rio-based
organization that provides media and networking support to favela
communities, and its watchdog news platform RioOnWatch.org.
Authors:
Cerianne Robertson
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