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Alert

CPJ releases report on polarizing political influence on radio news and resulting violence against journalists in Northeast

(CPJ/IFEX) - The following is a 17 October 2006 CPJ press release:

RADIO RAGE
Political influence permeates radio news in Brazil's remote Northeast
Radio hosts and independent journalism are victims

New York, October 17, 2006 - Politically owned or controlled radio stations are booming throughout Brazil's Northeast interior - often in defiance of the law - and have fostered a partisan, attack-oriented brand of commentary. These outspoken commentators have, in turn, become targets of violence: Five radio journalists have been killed in as many years in this region alone, making it one of the deadliest areas for the press in the Americas.

"Radio Rage," a new report by CPJ's Carlos Lauría and Sauro González Rodríguez, investigates the precarious state of the press in Brazil's Northeast interior. Lauría and González interviewed journalists, government officials, researchers, and listeners in the states of Pernambuco and Ceará, where radio reigns as the most popular news medium. Their findings show that politicians have come to control numerous radio stations by manipulating a 1998 law that was supposed to allot licenses to nonprofit organizations. In other cases, politicians have set up clandestine stations that operate without any license at all.

The radio commentators, while partisan, are very popular because they give voice to listeners' everyday concerns. Among the recent victims was Nicanor Linhares Batista, the magnetic host of a top-rated radio show. "Listening to Nicanor Linhares' political program was a sacred habit," one listener told CPJ. "Nicanor based his work on both facts and opinions. He was a political journalist."

To read the report: http://www.cpj.org/Briefings/2006/DA_fall_06/brazil_mission/brazil_mission.html

CPJ is a New York-based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.cpj.org