By Vitor Reinho and Daniela Soares Ferreira
The bottom line of the story was announced in 2019, when journalist Sandra Felgeiras and her team from Sextus at 9, of the RTP, accused the then information department of boycotting the investigation. For the less aware, it should be said that the management team, then led by Maria Flora Pedroso and Candida Pinto, would have resigned after the former went to parliament to discuss the case. Candida Pinto, this one, was on vacation and had never appeared at the Assembly of the Republic.
Sandra Felgeiras, meanwhile, found herself at the center of several disputes with members of the government, the most visible face of this “war” being the Deputy Secretary of State for Energy João Galamba, who embarked on a program that ended violently. … The program coordinator – the third most popular on a public channel -, in addition to complaining about censorship, publicly complained about the lack of funds to create a convincing program and did so in Parliament to the President of the Republic in 2019, when she received the award for best news program by the Society of Authors of Portugal.
Continuing in the middle of a story worthy of Friday at 9, it can be said that at the time, Arons de Carvalho, the legendary PS figure who was part of the Media Regulatory Authority, ERC, and is now curiously a member of the Independent General Council. Arons de Carvalho told newspaper i – December 19, 2019, at the height of the Friday at 9 war with the director of the information department, that “programs of this kind should not be on public television.” To back up his idea, Arons added: “There should be investigative journalism, but the dissemination of the content of this type of journalism should have as the only criterion the completion of a controversial job with proper disclosure. This obligation to receive some kind of reprimand every week for exposure leads to the fact that in journalism absolutely necessary steps are skipped. ” The socialist media guru referred to the fact that Sandra Felgeiras’s program was interrupted during the election campaign, which is another of the controversies the journalist was involved in.
With the new channel of information on the public channel, things went quieter, but the means the journalist claimed never came out – higher-ranking journalists and an end to the insecurities of some team members. Lest there be any doubt about the narrative, those in charge of RTP declined to answer questions asked by Nasser prior to SOL.
Following the current narratives and correctly styling, we come to the present day. In the case of two weeks ago.
Sandra Felgeiras announced her intention to leave the company, tired of fighting windmills, according to people close to her, and explained to the information department that until December 17, she had a pompous content and that she had a duty to protect her. sources that have exposed some members of the government. The directors are directed by Antonio José Teixeira and Carlos Daniel, who themselves participated in a wild story upon arriving at the canal directors, where he was deputy director when he was appointed director, but thwarted by the party forces of this ingenious device. as reported then – he decided, in a week, to publish a communiqué on termination of the contract with Sandra Felgeiras yesterday, November 26th.
However, the information department of the RTP reacted to the news, which began to spread in the media – it is still unknown who published this news. “Due to the public announcement of her departure from RTP and the formalization of her dissolution from the company, journalist Sandra Felgeiras will no longer coordinate and present the program on Friday at 9 am from the end of this week.” And finally, the official confirmation came from a journalist who has been working for the RTP since 2000.
The Information Office added that “free and independent investigative journalism has been part of RTP’s history for decades and will continue to be so. Verification of credentials and what may be illegal and public interest remains a priority for RTP information, which operates in an updated format, “they say in a note thanking” for the work and dedication that journalist Sandra Felgeiras talked about her more than twenty years of travel at RTP. “
Friday at 9 am the team responds
Despite this situation, a team of journalists from Friday at 9 am, without their coordinator, wrote a letter that they sent to the RTP newsroom and which Nasser had access to before POL, demonstrating their “deep resentment” at the station’s public decision. by pausing the program.
The indignation, it says, is due to the fact that “not a word was addressed to them on this matter.”
“It is with deep humiliation that we see all this happening after months of silence about the lack of resources for the program; and when we have several relevant investigations that are known to the Information Department and which fit only within the framework of the investigation program, “- in a note in which journalists add that it is” completely incomprehensible “that the Information Department announces that it is working in the” new format since Friday at 9 – never heard of us – and when he knows that the program is the only research space thus designated and at weekly intervals, RTP. “
So, journalists – Ana Raquel Leitao, Claudia Viana, Helena Cruz Lopez, Ines Subtil and Luis Vigario – criticize the “lack of communication” with the Friday at 9 team, which is added to the “public statement made in our absence that this will be the last program with Sandra Felgeiras “, which means” public humiliation of the team. “
In a long memo, five journalists complain about the lack of resources and ensure that they are never heard, speaking of “apparent abandonment and deep alienation” from the team’s work by the RTP Information Department, journalists say that “there is no obvious lack of resources that we have experienced, not , not yesterday. “
However, the minutes of the RTP editorial board meeting, to which Nascer do SOL had access, states that the Information Department “wondered if there was room for negotiation or discussion on keeping the journalist in the RTP, and the same denied this possibility, ruling in in the form in which it is accepted. ”
And, contrary to what the investigative program reporters say, the RTP Information Office says it “never received any requests from the Friday at 9 team for a meeting,” adding that on October 13 “there was the coordinator’s first and only proposal to participate in other elements of the program. “. “The Information Department understood that this meeting should only be with the coordinator, and a broader conversation could take place later,” the message says.
Nascer do SOL knows that on Friday at 9 o’clock the team, including its coordinator, requested additional resources for the program several times, but never received a positive response. The same response was given by Carlos Daniel and Antonio José Teixeira in October, when the appeal was last filed. However, it is clear in the CoR communiqué that the Information Office claims that the team has the same five journalists as when it was created.
Nascer do SOL knows that the RTP information department has always been aware of the lack of resources in the research program, but has never done anything to change that. It was then that two weeks ago, Sandra Felgeiras announced her resignation, presenting her formal resignation to the Board of Directors last week.
It is not known what will happen to Sandra Felgeiras’s team, but our newspaper knows that the information department calls each journalist in the team individually.
It should be noted that shortly after Nascer do SOL posted a letter from Sandra Felgeiras’s team, former Transparency and Integrity President João Paulo Bataglia shared the news on Twitter where he commented, “It’s official. If the RTP does not die a dead death, he dies a dead death. ” According to João Paulo Bataglia, the public radio station’s information department “has seen a triumph of boycott of investigative journalism for several years”, as a result of which one of the most watched programs dies. And he has no doubts: “RTP refuses to announce the updated format. If he had an interest in investigative journalism, he would have had many years to invest in it, ”he says, accusingly:“ This is what happens when you put careerists in charge of news rather than journalists. With the salary of a taxpayer ”.
Public channel corridors say the new investigation program may be led by Candida Pinto, a former deputy director who was fired but never left RTP. Interestingly, the journalist who most of all “disliked” Sandra Felgeiras, according to some journalists in the house. As for the future ex-coordinator on Friday at 9am, it will go through Cofina. Saturday and CMTV.
