Journalism is a vaccine for the virus of extremism
Education in schools and professional journalism are essential to prevent the generation that will go to the polls in the future from becoming radicalized
While CNN Portugal and other channels broadcast, at this very moment, real facts, investigated by professional journalists, in an underworld of extremism, lies circulate with frightening speed. In messaging app groups, people feed daily on conspiracy theories and lies that seem nice, but are dangerous.
This underworld does not only exist in Brazil, but also in other countries, such as the United States and also in European nations, where so many lies flourished in the Covid-19 pandemic. In the largest country in Latin America, this danger was wide open on January 8, when Bolsonarists invaded the headquarters of the Three Powers in Brasília.
After part of the chaos, with cleaning professionals, true patriots, committed to cleaning up the damage caused by extremists and more than a thousand “good citizens” arrested, Brazil is on alert. The danger has not passed and we do not know exactly when it will pass.
That’s because there is a generation of Brazilians who spent years being fed fake news and hate. No wonder journalists are some of the main targets of extremists, being verbally harassed and physically attacked, especially women. By the way, I’ll bet you a coffee and a bread of God that the comments on this text will be the same as always: newspaper, commune and the traditional misogynistic insults.
This hatred directed at media professionals represents hatred of democracy. After all, there is no democracy without freedom and truth. Journalism is a vaccine for the virus of extremism.
The radicalization of adults and the elderly co-opted by Bolsonarism will not be a difficult task to combat. Education, a detox of lies, investment in mental health and empathy might help. The experience of staying in jail, which is not a summer camp, can also give the mission a boost.
But what worries me most is another generation of Brazilians growing up in the midst of this chaos. Children and teenagers taken to coup camps, signaling with a firearm and taught from an early age that hate is the way out. This is the generation that will go to the polls in the coming years, as our democratic electoral system guarantees. What values will they be based on?
It is necessary to prevent them from becoming radicalized. If lies are taught indoors, a mission becomes more difficult. However, one must have hope. The old education cliché is more than real. Education plays a central role in this. It is urgent that schools teach the literacy of the truth and reaffirm the importance of being informed by professional journalism. This is being done in Finland, for example, where a discipline is based on teaching how to detect misinformation, as shown in a recent report by The New York Times.
Of course, the situation in Brazil and Finland is incomparable in many ways. But don’t prevent it from being inspiring for a model in Brazilian schools. It is urgent to teach children and adolescents that the underworld of lies leads to hatred and the frightening cognitive dissonance seen today in extremists, who deny reality in front of their eyes.
Education plays a key role in this deradicalization, as does journalism. Less groups of messaging apps with “against communism” names and more reality. Fewer far-right influencers, who receive money to register hate and support from digital platforms to amplify messages. More laws that strictly punish disinformation. More print newspaper. More radio. More real news sites. More journalism. More true. More reading. Combating disinformation is essential to democracy.
Our role as journalists has never been more important. Having a committed press, which presented the truth, to rigorously analyze the events and to put aside the idea that the facts cannot be named as they are. Have are exempt from supporting terrorists. To have avoided is to remain indifferent to hate. Having left is not seeing democracy being destroyed before our eyes and not saying anything. And no, that doesn’t make us communists or bad professionals. It only makes us journalists, democrats and humans. The future of an entire generation is at stake. The future of Brazil is at stake.
* Amanda Lima Write your opinion in Brazilian Portuguese