Thinking aloud and in draft form.

The escalating number of layoffs among media professionals in recent years, and in recent days—50 journalists from Folha, 100 from Estadão, Jornal Nacional and other television news programs experiencing plummeting ratings—shows that the sector is collapsing at an unimaginable speed.

Large media groups like Estado, Abril, SBT, and others are putting assets, machinery, antennas, and gigantic printing presses up for sale, but are unable to find buyers. Their fate may be museums.

Grupo Abril, for example, closed several magazines, laid off 150 employees, and vacated half of its headquarters building. The newspaper O Sul recently ceased publication of its print edition, and editors of weekly magazines are already discussing maintaining only the online edition.

According to IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), Brazil is the country with the fastest-growing internet access in the world. At the end of 2014, it reached 108 million internet users, surpassing Japan.

It is also the 6th country with the highest number of smartphones. This means that content is in the palm of your hand and no longer at the newsstand or on the living room TV.

In other words, large media groups are now competing for space on the internet on equal terms with any other established group or one that wants to establish itself.

The question is the installed capacity to produce content. Small teams can generate big business.

The decline in readership and print runs of newspapers has led advertisers to seek other means of advertising their products, migrating to the internet or creating their own websites.

As a result, revenues for traditional media outlets—TV, newspapers, magazines, and radio—plummeted. The decentralization of advertising and its diversification to reach a larger number of internet users began to gain traction.

A major newspaper in Brasília, in 2010, had a circulation of 70 copies on Sundays, in a population of over two million. Today it doesn't exceed 30.

This is because the internet is here to stay and is challenging a model, especially that of the press, which is suffering an unprecedented loss of credibility, as opinion polls indicate.

The internet has given everyone a voice, creating veritable public squares, which are social networks, electronic platforms with almost absolute freedom of expression and the possibility of instantly checking information if there is any doubt about the publication.

Everyone can set up their own communication channel. Size doesn't matter anymore. In the National Congress, for example, the trend now is for parliamentarians to call on their constituents on social media to watch them speak in the Plenary or in committees.

Those most versed in the use of WhatsApp and other networks are accompanied by a press officer equipped with a cell phone who films, edits, and posts their pronouncements or short opinion interviews on any subject.

In addition to social media, they have websites where they post all the information they consider important for their voters.

The decline of large media groups has also affected fictional journalism and the manipulation of information, which is now frequently debunked on the internet.

The so-called mainstream press, with due exceptions, is demoralized, and in this vacuum, a new model of press is emerging strongly, still trying to find its balance.

Traditionally centralized newsrooms are being fragmented, giving way to press offices, which are growing in public agencies and companies.

Not to mention the immense diversity of specialized websites, the number of blogs by analysts on a wide variety of subjects is growing: from politics, economics, and arts to dog behavior.

What is emerging is that those who will survive in this electronic jungle are those who produce reliable information, honest journalism, with good interpreters of reality, to help society understand the transformations of the world and to advance in the affirmation of citizenship and democracy.

Ultimately, credibility is the essence of journalism.

The fact is that we are still under the impact of the emergence of new media. The technological revolution in communication is still very recent. All of this is still settling.

The communications sector is as important to the country's development as the transportation, industrial, and agricultural sectors. But it is not usually treated with the consideration it deserves.

Studies to determine the contribution of this sector to GDP are still insufficient, due to the fact that it is undergoing intense transformation.

The Dilma government will soon announce a project, currently being finalized at the Ministry of Communications, called "Broadband for All," which aims to universalize internet access for 98% of households by 2018, with speeds of 25 Mbps. Currently, the average speed is 2,9 Mbps.

With this, Brazil is now on par with the most developed countries in the world in terms of high-speed internet access.

R$ 50 billion will be invested. The government will contribute R$ 15 billion and the operators R$ 35 billion. The resources come from FISTEL – the Telecommunications Inspection Fund, which currently has R$ 47 billion in its coffers.

It is a sector that needs a regulatory framework to organize it from an economic, social, cultural, and political standpoint, due to its strategic importance in building the democratic and sovereign nation we desire.

I believe we will be able to create means committed to civilization so that we can overcome barbarism.