June 24, 2022

20:06

Eliziane Paiva – from Agencia Amazônia

MANAUS – The writer, documentarist and journalist Eliane Brum, 56 years old, friend of the british journalist Dominic Mark Phillips and the Brazilian indigenist Bruno da Cunha Araújo Pereira – murdered on indigenous lands in the Javari Valley, Atalaia do Norte (1,136 kilometers from Manaus) denied, on her social networks, fake news about having suffered death threats.

The writer from Rio Grande do Sul lives in Altamira, in the state of Pará, and is a columnist for the Spanish newspaper El País and contributor to several newspapers and magazines in Europe and the United States, such as The Guardian and The New York Times. Brum has been covering stories from the Amazon for almost 25 years and was the target of false news propagated, according to the journalist, by portals in the region.

According to the fake news, Eliane had cancelled her trip to Parintins, where she was going to participate in an event, after suffering death threats. In her profile on the social network Twitter, Eliane published: “Besides all the horror and mourning that we are living, we still have to deal with fake news. A website in Amazonas published the “news” that I canceled a lecture in Parintins because I received death threats for being a friend of Dom and Bruno. It is a LIE and it is doing harm to family and friends. Stop it!”, she said.

A friendly relationship

In an article published by Eliane in the newspaper Nexo, she tells about the friendship she had with Dom Phillips and describes the exact moment she received the news about the journalist’s disappearance. “On Monday (6), early in the morning, I was startled by a message on WhatsApp. I was being asked if Tom Phillips, The Guardian’s correspondent in Brazil, was missing in the Javari Valley, one of the most dangerous regions of the Amazon. My husband, Jonathan Watts, is global environment editor for the british newspaper and lives in the Amazon with me. Tom, however, was at home in Rio de Janeiro and promptly answered his cell phone. If it wasn’t Tom, then who was missing? Dom Phillips, we concluded in the next second”, says the writer at the beginning of the article.

“The difference of just one letter in the names of two journalists who write for The Guardian in Brazil usually causes confusion. Dom is one of Jon’s best friends, he’s a lovely guy, excellent journalist, experienced and responsible reporter. We knew that Dom was working on a book about the forest. So I asked an indigenous leader from the Javari Valley to send me a picture of the missing person, so that we could be sure. When the picture opened on the cell phone, the certainty was a hand crushing his stomach. Yes, it was Dom. Our beloved Dom, with his sunny face, of one who fears nothing to show the world, clothed by the green of the forest around him”.

“The pain then became more poignant. It was necessary to tell his wife, our friend Alessandra, and the family in England, that Dom had been missing for 24 hours. It was also necessary to inform the Guardian, the newspaper with which Dom collaborates most frequently. The person who was traveling with Dom was Bruno Pereira, one of the most important indigenists of his generation, exonerated from his position at the National Indian Foundation in 2019, when Sergio Moro was Minister of Justice, after commanding an operation to suppress illegal mining. A career Funai employee, Bruno had to request leave from the agency to continue protecting indigenous people: under the Bolsonaro government, Funai became an organ against indigenous people”, wrote the journalist.

Author of eight books in Brazil

Author of seven works of nonfiction and one novel, Eliane Brum published her first book of reportage in english in 2019 by publishers Graywolf in the United States and Granta in the United Kingdom. The Collector of Leftover Souls (Brum’s book) has also been translated into Italian and Polish.

Eliane has also directed and co-directed four documentaries, the first of which was ‘Uma História Severina’, awarded 17 national and international prizes, and the most awarded film in Brazil, according to the annual survey conducted by the specialized website Jornalistas & Cia.

In 2021, she received the Maria Moors Cabot Award, offered by the Columbia University School of Journalism, in New York (USA), the most relevant journalism award in the Americas and the oldest in the world, for her career. Eliane Brum worked in Porto Alegre for the first 11 years of her career and in São Paulo for the following 17 years. Since 2017, she has been living and working from Altamira, in the Middle Xingu, one of the epicenters of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

Fake news

The fake news, expression in english, spreads very quickly as a result of the ease that the internet provides to users, the more people are accessing and sharing news, and call attention to sensationalist slant with current affairs and with information of emotional appeal to the viewer, who often does not bother to question the veracity of the news.

The dissemination of fake news has already caused a great national tragedy, in 2014, when a woman was lynched to death by residents of the city of Guarujá, in São Paulo. The housewife, mother of two children, Fabiane Maria de Jesus, 33, was mistaken for an alleged kidnapper of children, after the release of a sketch circulating on social networks, which had been made two years earlier.

The anti-vaccination movement is another news story disseminated through fake news. People opposed to the use of vaccines pass on information, often involving statistical data, claiming that the chemical compositions of vaccines are harmful to the population. The information claimed that the drugs against yellow fever, polio, measles, microcephaly and influenza could be a health risk, causing the respective diseases in people when vaccinated.

How to avoid fake news

Some tips can help you find out if the news is fact or fake. When you notice sensationalist or miraculous titles, ask yourself. Many times these titles are made to accumulate clicks and not necessarily convey veracity. Look for the same information in other vehicles, especially those you already know and trust.

The date of publication is also an important factor; a real, but old, piece of news may bring panic or create expectations about a situation that has already been resolved or controlled. Make sure the source really exists, if it has other dubious publications on the same platform.

It is always interesting to investigate more about the site in question. Consult free verification sites. Spreading false information, even more if it is of great complexity, is dangerous. Do not feed fake news, always verify the information received and make sure it is true before sharing. When in doubt, don’t share.