Brazil: Media Forum on Disabilities at Risk
People with disabilities in Brazil run the risk of losing a key media forum. Radio MEC, the public radio station of the Ministry of Education and Culture, is revising its entire broadcasting schedule. The program Manhã Viva (Living Morning), featuring an entire timeslot devoted to disability issues, was taken off the air in early 2001.
Besides eliminating this program, the Ministry of Education outraged the program's loyal listeners by firing two highly popular broadcasterså Eduardo Fajardo and Paulo Fernando, respectively the program directors for Manhã Viva as a whole and for the slot focusing on disability issues. Minister of Culture André Matarazo was forced to intervene, ordering Manhã Viva back on the air and re-hiring the two broadcasters.
A temporary restraining order was issued to Radio MEC, which resumed broadcasting the program, but the situation has still not been settled once and for all. Another request by Minister Matarazzo was met: Paulo Fernando is presenting short spots throughout the day, where he gives relevant tips and interviews experts in areas highlighting people with disabilities. The 15-minute slot devoted to people with disabilities deals with various specific and general-interest issues, like health, civil rights, and legislation, in addition to interviews with leading experts from the field.
According to Paulo Fernando, Radio MEC's attempts to drop the program violate the network's own philosophy, which has always been to foster culture and education. "Radio MEC is betraying its own principles. Manhã Viva, presented by Eduardo Fajardo, is the station's feature program with the largest audience, and the slot we broadcast for people with disabilities is a tradition", he says.
This is not the first setback for people with disabilities. Three years ago, the program Nosso Tempo (Our Time), also broadcast by Radio MEC and focusing exclusively on this audience, was taken off the air after 5 years, despite being broadcast to nearly 5 thousand local radio stations all across Brazil and having become a nationwide reference on disability issues. According to Paulo Fernando, Nosso Tempo was a pioneer in reaching this specific public. "The program was responsible for a change of behavior by the press itself and the public at large, who began to realize that people with disabilities are people like anybody else, who merely have specific needs, but who think and have the same basic goals as all other human beings," the broadcaster concludes.
Paulo Fernando is visually impaired and an activist in the Brazilian Radio Broadcasters' Union and the Latin American Radio Broadcasters' Confederation.
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