It's war: Veja sends a coded message to the PT (Workers' Party).

This weekend's Veja magazine report is the first attack directly related to the 2014 presidential elections; the text about the Pepper agency attacks, without naming him, the journalist Leandro Fortes, formerly of Carta Capital. "Pepper's first acquisition, with a view to 2014, recently finalized, was, as expected, the hiring of a well-known and experienced specialist in defamation."

November 30, 2013, 11:30 PMUpdated May 24, 2019, 08:35 AM

247 - The 2014 election campaign is officially underway, and the political camps are beginning to position themselves. This weekend, Veja magazine, which traditionally aligns itself with the PSDB party, launched its first attack on the group that will be working on President Dilma Rousseff's reelection campaign. More precisely, it targeted journalist Leandro Fortes, who left Carta Capital magazine and was hired as a consultant for the Pepper agency, which specializes in political marketing.

In the unsigned article "The Soul of the Business," Veja attacks both the agency and the journalist, who, according to the publication, was hired to wage a dirty war on the internet. The text ends as follows:

"The PT (Workers' Party) has set aside 10 million reais to finance its dirty war on the internet. Pepper's first acquisition for 2014, recently finalized, was, as expected, the hiring of a well-known and experienced defamation specialist – targeting adversaries and even allies who hinder the group's plans."

Although it doesn't name the professional, Veja is clearly referring to Leandro Fortes – Pepper's only significant signing, recently completed. Below is the text from Comunique-se regarding this:

Leandro Fortes leaves Carta Capital to become a consultant for a digital agency.

After eight years at Carta Capital, journalist Leandro Fortes is leaving the magazine this Friday, the 1st. Starting next week, he will be providing consulting services on internet content production to Pepper Interativa, a digital communication agency based in Brasília.

On Facebook, the reporter announced the new project. According to him, the work will serve as a basis for launching a news agency on the network in the future, guided by "intellectual honesty and factual truth."

Yesterday, even before Veja magazine hit the newsstands, journalist Augusto Nunes, host of the Roda Viva program and columnist for Veja.com, previewed the story, which, according to him, would also involve a dispute between Pepper and former minister Franklin Martins. Read below:

A report by VEJA exposes the shadows surrounding the dispute between the PT's agency and Franklin Martins's group.

Why is it that Pepper, after becoming the PT's (Workers' Party) internet agency, has managed to acquire so many clients in the government and state-owned companies? Is the PT using state funds to pay its agency, whose revenue continues to grow? In the edition that will soon be in the hands of subscribers and on newsstands, VEJA shows that, in addition to these questions awaiting immediate answers, there are some mysteries to unravel.

One of the most intriguing issues is the dispute between Pepper and former minister Franklin Martins over control of the dirty war on social media that the PT (Workers' Party) intends to wage against its adversaries. Franklin refused to work in partnership with Pepper. What he wants is to lead, without interference, the army of darkness recruited to act on the internet. Does this intransigent position suggest that Franklin is determined to use this freedom-killing force as he sees fit? Even to combat Dilma Rousseff's candidacy?

Franklin Martins belongs to the tribe that believes the ends justify the means. Nothing that comes from figures like him is surprising. They are incapable of anything—except doing the right thing. Check out the report in VEJA.

Leandro Fortes has not yet commented on the Veja report. When he left Carta Capital, he made a public farewell statement. Read below:

Painful farewell

I owe CartaCapital the opportunity to have rediscovered my love for journalism. I hope I have repaid them accordingly.

by Leandro Fortes

In October 2005, I had given up journalism.

The fury with which the media had devoured the "mensalão" scandal had, at the time, initiated a wave of editorial vandalism that transformed the work of newsrooms in Brasília into a single-task competition: to bring down the Lula government.

Transformed into soldiers of a paralyzing structure of monolithic thought, Brasília reporters began to gravitate around this objective set by the media barons without much critical concern. Suddenly, the order was to adapt all progressive and leftist theses linked to the PT government to the sewer of the "biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history" and, from then on, begin the hunt for Lula and his presidential term. They failed, but they didn't stop multiplying.

Thus, half a dozen families that monopolized (and still monopolize) the communications business in the country joined forces, as in 1964, to overthrow a president elected by popular vote through the very same UDN (National Democratic Union) discourse of combating corruption, combined, through a crude and deliberately manipulated adaptation, with diffuse concepts of freedom of the press and freedom of the press – a rhetorical trap that persists to this day, whose objective remains the same: to avoid seriously discussing either one or the other.

I had left promising jobs in the so-called "mainstream press" to dedicate myself to teaching journalism at a college in Brasília. My intention, as I ended up doing shortly afterward, was to create my own forum for discussion and training in journalism, detached from the growing right-wing, conservative, and mediocre ideology of the national media. Thus was born the Free School of Journalism, an arena of ideas, seminars, lectures, and workshops for students and young journalists seeking counterpoints to the stench of traditional media. I also dedicated myself to writing books and giving lectures throughout Brazil.

CartaCapital entered my life in 2005 through the same person who brought me to Brasília in 1990, Cynara Menezes – my friend and contemporary from my time at UFBA, my dear sister, a brilliant journalist, always.

I didn't know it, but by being nominated by Cynara to take on the role of Carta's correspondent in Brasília, I would have the chance to live the most important, relevant, and satisfying experience of my journalistic career since, on an afternoon in May 1986, I set foot in the newsroom of Tribuna da Bahia as an unpaid intern, in an old, soot-covered building in the Sete Portas neighborhood, in the heart of old Salvador.

My experience at CartaCapital bears the striking mark of working alongside the magazine's creator and soul, Mino Carta, by far the most important and influential journalist still active in Brazil. Having previously worked for the Mesquita, Sirotsky, Marinho, and Nascimento Brito families, I didn't know what it was like to have a real journalist as my boss. Even if it were just that—having the opportunity to work and interact with a professional of Mino's caliber and wisdom—the experience at CartaCapital would already have been a gift. But it was more than that.

In these eight years at CartaCapital, I have shaped my reporter's spirit in the constant fight against social injustices, selective moralism, and bad journalism sold to society as the epitome of liberal thought, but which is merely a laughable byproduct of a certain school of reporting serving the worst and most reactionary elements of the self-proclaimed national elites.

From my trench in the federal capital, I set out to travel the country in order to listen to those who had never been heard and to give a voice to those who could never speak.

I was, with great pride, the reporter of the invisible.

Now, as I depart for other professional endeavors, I would like to share with all of you, dear friends, colleagues, and readers, this contradictory feeling of mine, so typical of those who leave without the certainty that they truly want to go.

I owe CartaCapital the opportunity to have rediscovered my love for journalism, with all the difficulties and sacrifices that this very special profession places before us every day.

Today, on my last day of work at Carta, I look back and sincerely hope I have lived up to expectations.