Media-driven terror sinks in the face of reality.

247 - One by one, all the major programs launched by President Dilma Rousseff were immediately and mercilessly attacked by the mainstream press. Real life, however, showed over time that all, let me repeat, all the ominous predictions multiplied by the media did not pay off. In other words, what was written was worthless. Follow along:

SOAR INFLATION Media scaremongering with a strong ideological bias predicted, at the beginning of the year, an unchecked surge in inflation, with a Veja magazine cover in January showing Dilma, in a crude montage, stepping on a tomato. On Rede Globo, Ana Maria Braga, who doesn't remember?, displayed a necklace in which red vegetables served as pearls. In June, however, the variation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was a negligible 0,07%, and for July, all forecasts converge on deflation. Even presidential candidate José Serra, in a teleconference this week, admitted that the inflation rate will close the year within the target set by the Central Bank. The issue, therefore, faded from the agenda.

POWER OUTAGE Before the prediction of rising prices, every newspaper and columnist predicted, at the turn of the year, an imminent power outage in the country. In this regard, the most particular emphasis came from the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper and its columnist Eliane Cantanhêde. The defenses made by the president herself and the Minister of Mines and Energy, Edson Lobão, were ridiculed and dismissed.

MORE EXPENSIVE LIGHTING - The much-talked-about collapse of the energy system, however, did not occur, and Brazil continued to have its lights on, despite the obscurantism of the traditional media. Furthermore, the equally contested federal plan to lower electricity bills for all consumers in the country, indiscriminately, through official subsidies, was successful – and today, what is paid for energy is more than 10% less than the cost at the beginning of the year.

ENEM FAILURE - The bet on energy chaos was followed this year by the widespread prediction in the press that the National High School Exam (Enem) would be a resounding failure. This time, it was the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo that most diligently beat the drum of government defeat. What was seen when the official Enem registrations for 2013 were counted, however, was a spectacular record, with more than 7,8 million spontaneous registrations from the student body. The Minister of Education, Aloizio Mercadante, another who had not found any support for his predictions of success, was absolutely right.

Useless Bolsa Família program. Today a worldwide success, exported to different countries, the Bolsa Família program, boosted by the current government and reaching more than 10 million homes in the country, was ridiculed, vilified, and fought against in every way. The fact is, whether the media barons like it or not, it survived, proliferated, and modernized over the years, becoming the lever that allowed 40 million Brazilians, in recent years, to overcome their extreme poverty.

MORE DOCTORS DEFEATED - This Friday, the 26th, when the Mais Médicos program, which aims to place medical professionals in remote areas of Brazil with salaries of up to R$ 10 for those who accept the challenge, closed its registration, it was more of the same. Attacked from all sides, Mais Médicos received 18,4 applications from interested participants, in addition to the participation of more than 3,5 municipalities, or 63% of the total number of Brazilian cities. A success that the traditional media, once again, not only failed to predict for the public, but also led them down the wrong path, suggesting that, like the programs mentioned earlier, it had no chance of succeeding. The problem with this news coverage is that the first stage of the program did, in fact, surpass even the most optimistic predictions – and the Minister of Health, Alexandre Padilha, can breathe a sigh of relief.

Rampant unemployment. To use the expression repeated by Pope Francis, the traditional media now "believes" in the rise in unemployment, after June's data showed, for the first time since 2009, an interruption in the growth of the labor market. Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who, incidentally, has already been removed from his post several times in recent news reports, is not only there, but guaranteeing that the defeatism spread by the newspapers will not triumph. He assured that all government indicators point to maintaining the unemployment rate around the current level of 6% until the end of the year – and, as on previous occasions, his words are strongly questioned, as if, this time, and at a strategic point for the government, the media wanted to collect the prize for its bet.

Stadiums for 2038 - In a culmination of mathematical error, explainable only by the ideological distortion that produces bias, Veja magazine, the flagship publication of Editora Abril, even claimed on one of its 2012 covers that the new football stadiums planned for the World Cup would only be ready, that's right, in 2038! Today, aside from the discussion about costs and oversight in the use of resources, what is clear to see is that all the promised stadiums, without exception, are either already finished and fully operational, or about to be delivered. One of Pope Francis' predecessors has already admitted that not even popes are infallible anymore, but Veja, despite all its malicious errors, continues to sell its infallibility. But who still believes that?

NATIONAL ANTHEM BACKWARDS - The "the worse, the better" game practiced by the press, which in the past considered impartiality one of its dogmas, led the media to sell the public the certainty that the crowd that filled the Arena Fonte Nova in Bahia to see Brazil's debut against Japan in the Confederations Cup in June would sing the National Anthem with their backs to the field. What actually happened, however, was more than 40 people moving the players on the field with their voices at the top of their lungs, hands on their chests, respecting the national symbol in all its verses. Facing the field and with their heads held high. As a bonus, the Brazilian National Football Team, discredited by the same media, won the tournament undefeated and spectacularly – leading dozens of journalist-fans to tear up their useless bets on defeat.

Believe it or not - By relying on ominous predictions and failing to see them come true, the traditional media, in the last two years, has been confusing readers far more than informing them about what is actually happening. Otherwise, the cases described above could not be reported. But they can, because they are true.

A serious prediction, given this past scenario, is that, without a doubt, the media that insists on interpreting reality through the kaleidoscope of ideology will continue to increasingly confuse and misinform. Believe what you want in what's written there.