Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Today’s Video: Brazil's "Ciudado Kane"

Is the media as a whole or in part biased? Have certain press outlets have so much power that they can sway elections and popular opinion? Has journalism been subverted by the influence specific media conglomerates have? Can the press be trusted at all?

These questions (and many others) were raised in a 1993 British documentary entitled "Beyond Citizen Kane." The film focuses on Brazil's Rede Globo and how founder Roberto Marinho constructed a regional media empire. The documentary, which so far yet to air on TV in Brazil, examined how the late Marinho amassed power by allying with the country's military dictatorship and implied that biased reporting on TV Globo was decisive in the 1989 presidential election.

Bootleg copies of the film can be found online in Portuguese with some English subtitles. Here is a portion of a very revealing documentary:

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