TV Bandeirantes and the great "Diretas Já!" rally in '84

By José Augusto Ribeiro

Television stations were informally prohibited from broadcasting the large "Diretas Já!" rally in Praça da Sé on the afternoon of January 25, 1984, outside of São Paulo. However, they could broadcast within the city of São Paulo because it was a local holiday, the city's anniversary, the subway was operating with open turnstiles, and those who couldn't watch on TV could further increase the rally's audience, already estimated at around 300 people.

In the TV-Bandeirantes newsroom that afternoon, we constantly saw, through the glass-enclosed corridor, Mr. João Saad, the company's president and owner, heading towards the office of Sílvia Jafet, the news director, looking worried and restless. His irritation was visible, and we soon learned that, outwardly, he was directing his complaints at other targets. Mr. João was even finding fault with something about the day's episode of the sitcom "Jennie, the Bewitched."

He was actually beside himself with the prohibition against us broadcasting live, in bulletins or on Jornal da Bandeirantes, to the whole of Brazil, whatever was happening at the rally and especially that immense sea of ​​people, applauding and shouting "Diretas Já!" (Direct Elections Now!). I don't know how many times Seu João came and went, but on several of those occasions I was in Sílvia's office, following the local broadcast and discussing the editing of the news program.

Around 7 p.m., less than half an hour before the Jornal Bandeirantes news program, Seu João gathered us together—Silvia, Joelmir Betting, the presenter Ferreira Martins, and me—to announce his decision:

We're going to broadcast live. But be careful what you say.

This recommendation applied to me, the newspaper's political commentator, and also to Silvia, who would have to decide on every word and every comma in the texts that Ferreira would read, and to Joelmir, theoretically the economic commentator, but whose talent as an improviser was always expected to have some political impact.

Seu João must have known what awaited him, we suspected as much. We went to the studio and at the end of the news program we went live from Praça da Sé, exactly at the moment when, on the platform and in that crowd of people, everyone was holding hands, arms raised, and singing the National Anthem. Only Bandeirantes broadcast that moment live to the entire country. I was supposed to make the final comment and what I managed to say, stunned by that scene, was of a banality, of an insignificance that far exceeded the caution requested by Seu João:

"After this, given what we've just seen, Brazil will never be the same again," I predicted, already realizing there was no way to fix this foolishness.

But Joelmir, who was responsible for closing the newspaper, saved it. He couldn't ask for "Direct Elections Now!", but he got into the spirit and wished:

Good evening, NOW!

We returned to the newsroom together and were greeted with applause. The phones wouldn't stop ringing; colleagues from TV Globo, who hadn't been able to broadcast the rally, were asking us to repeat the scenes we had just shown on the late-night news, because they were already insisting with their bosses, arguing that Bandeirantes had broken the censorship and the others wouldn't be punished if they also showed recorded scenes from the rally.

Days later, Seu João was summoned to Brasília for a meeting with Figueiredo, a meeting he hadn't requested. Figueiredo barely told him to sit down before showing him a paper ready for his signature:

- Do you know what this is, João? It's the concession decree for the Bandeirantes channel in Brasilia.

For a nationwide network like Bandeirantes, it was unthinkable not to have a station in Brasília. And Bandeirantes didn't have one and had been waiting for a long time for the concession of the respective channel.

Figueiredo, enraged, continued:

Look what I'm going to do with your decree!

And he tore up the scraps of torn paper and threw them in the trash.

But the campaign continued, and soon the government had to lift its bans. The contrast between the large crowds in Praça da Sé and the silence of most TV stations only harmed the government. In a short time, TV Globo became the channel providing the most extensive coverage of the rallies.

In April, the Dante de Oliveira Amendment, which would have restored direct elections, was shelved in the Chamber of Deputies, where a shortfall of just 22 votes prevented it from reaching the two-thirds majority required for approval. In January 85, Tancredo Neves defeated Paulo Maluf in the electoral college by 300 votes (480 to 180), and Figueiredo made it clear to Seu João his intention to sign the decree he had torn up a year earlier.

On one of his trips to Brasília, Seu João invited me to lunch. At that moment, I was discussing my return to Bandeirantes, a move he had suggested when we talked about the invitation I had received to be Tancredo's press secretary during the presidential campaign.

"I already knew about the invitation," he informed me as he received me in his office. "Tancredo called me. I told him you could be more helpful by staying here; he thinks you'd be more helpful there. So you'll go and then come back..."

During that lunch, Seu João told me about Figueiredo's offer and asked:

Tell Tancredo that I would prefer to have the Bandeirantes highway in Brasília granted by him, after he takes office.

Dr. Tancredo was more prudent – ​​or prophetic – and sent word.

It's best if João lets Figueiredo sign. Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring...

More than thirty years later, the situation is worse than at the twilight of the military dictatorship, and Bandeirantes cannot repeat what it did in 1984. Fortunately, in this twilight of the old monopolistic and monologuing media, we already have the new alternative and dialogical media. It may still be a minority, but the fact is that things are happening despite the silence of the mainstream media, in the same way as they happened in the struggles of thirty years ago.