'These populist leaders are not just a fad or a wave. We might have to live with them for several years. So we need to really understand how to best cover these governments without letting them manipulate the news cycle in the way they do.'
As Editor at Large and columnist at Brazil's Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, Patrícia Campos Mello goes on global reporting whirlwinds: over the past few weeks, she has covered the war in Lebanon, the US elections and, last week, the G20 summit.
Winner of multiple prestigious journalism awards – including the Maria Moors Cabot award, the CPJ International Press Freedom Award, the Red Cross Prize for Humanitarian Journalism and the King of Spain Journalism Prize – the Brazilian journalist is renowned for more than her fearless investigative reporting. She has covered international relations, economics and human rights from over 50 countries and has, famously, stood her ground against a barrage of attacks from then President Jair Bolsonaro, eventually even winning in court proceedings against him and his son.
She carved time out of her schedule to chat to World Editors Forum about persevering in an industry beleaguered by threats – and share advice on maintaining and sustaining credible reporting on demagoguery within restricted environments.
As a reporter, we have the privilege of getting to know many amazing people and seeing interesting places – and sometimes, our work does make a difference. Sometimes, we manage to help people; to shed light on injustices that otherwise would go unaccounted for. And now, being a reporter now is not just writing: I do TV, podcasts… everything. I love being a reporter. The tragedy is that fewer media outlets can pay reporters a salary; the news business model, as we all know, is suffering.
I think the main challenge now is: how to make our profession viable and sustainable. How to keep media outlets alive, so that you have space and resources for people to devote themselves to sourcing and delivering accurate information, which is the basic job of a reporter.
I think one of the best mottos – Marty Baron's: "We are not at war. We are at work." – is the approach to take with Donald Trump returning to power in the US. He will probably be even more hostile towards the press this time, for no other reason than that he will be more powerful, with no checks and balances.
'Trump's election showed us that this is not an extraordinary time. These populist leaders – who have this very hostile, confrontational approach towards the press – are not just a fad or a wave. We might have to live with them for several years. So we need to really understand how to best cover these governments without letting them manipulate the news cycle in the way they do.'
This, while we deal with the challenge of being still relevant in a fragmented media environment. During the US election, we saw how podcasts and influencers had many interviews with the candidates, which is fine – but they don't have the journalist process, to question and dispute and check the answers of the interviewee. But they have millions and millions of followers or listeners or viewers. So, how to keep our journalistic process critical but not confrontational – and maintain the accountability journalism that we do, while fighting to retain our relevancy?
I think it is a challenge to maintain this stance of being critical, while not waging a crusade against a particular president. And I still think the best way to fight for democracy while being a journalist is to be a journalist and not an activist. Exposing corruption, exposing violations of human rights… the best we can do is this, our job, and keep our activism to being an activist in defence of facts and accurate reporting. We need to keep our professionalism, our journalistic process, intact so that we can fulfil this role.
The readers, the viewers, they are our bosses – and criticism from them is welcome; we have to be open to criticism, and to correcting our mistakes. But what usually happens when you're a journalist and you're a woman, is that the criticism is not related to your stories or to your work – they're always attacks on your personality, on your family, on the fact that you're a woman. They'll say you're ugly, you're fat, you're old… misogynistic stuff.
I follow the line that I never feed the trolls. I never interact with people who are aggressive online. When there's a massive attack, the best thing to do is just stop looking. Ask someone you know, a friend or a family member, to check for any real threat to your personal safety that should be reported to the police. Otherwise, just detox from social media because it gets really toxic.
Generally, my main issue is always income inequality and poverty and showing the ways that income inequality affects people – be it in conflicts such as Lebanon or Gaza, or in Brazil or South Africa, where there's no open conflict, but poverty itself is a conflict.
I think more and more, we need to think about how our work impacts the world around us and to be more respectful towards other people; have more empathy. This is something we journalists don't do enough of.
How do I find the time? I don't. Whenever I'm working, I'm thinking that I should be spending more time with my son. And when I'm not working – reading a book for fun or just travelling – I'm thinking I should be working on the book, or reading, or watching more to know and to understand everything that is going on.