How did Mural emerge and for what?

Rafael Balago: Journalist Bruno Garcés opened a blog to talk about the peripheries of Sao Paulo. He said he wrote many times about foreign countries, but then he never wrote about many of his neighborhoods, and of those places, the media always gave bad news. Killings, violence -- stereotypes take hold. Little by little, he took up his body and began to train the young people who lived in the periphery so that they themselves could find out what was happening in the place where they lived. Since then, this blog has become a news agency.

José Pablo Brito: When we talk about peripheries in Sao Paulo, we're talking about neighborhoods far from downtown. Many do not have movies, theatres or basic public services. To go to the center, it takes two or three hours of these places, sometimes more. Middle-class journalists who dominate the media do not know the peripheries. They don't know this reality and they don't write about people's lives, about the existing cultural activity. They always talk about bandits or murderers, the criminalisation of the poor is terrible. Mural is a pioneering agency that addresses these neighborhoods in a journalistic and positive way. Many see us as an example, because we put into practice the way mass media should work in these neighborhoods.

What kind of journalism do you do?

J.P. Brito: We carry in the DNA of the mural agency that we don't want to reproduce what other media do. We're not just talking about the problems of poor people. We try to empathize, look for beautiful stories that are worth reading, or try news about interesting projects. In Sao Paulo we have experienced a great cultural explosion in recent years: there are many initiatives, popular cinemas, concerts, etc. From the Mural Agency we address this to bring this reality closer to the citizens. Here's life, you have to be aware, there's interesting things.

The word periphery is the axis of the project.

J.P. Brito: I don't know what things are like here in Euskal Herria. When we talk about Sao Paulo, people have hours of transportation to get to work. There are favelas and more structured neighborhoods, but they're basically small cities inside another giant. In all these millions of people, neighborhoods have their own dynamics, and some, for example, are the size of Bilbao. The field is big and very different. The big media tell very differently the news of those who live in the center with better living conditions, and the lives of millions of people on the periphery.

Oh my God! Very well: Most of the city's journalists reside in the central headquarters of Sao Paulo, where they work, and to reach a neighborhood in the outskirts, the journalist needs two or three hours in the car, work and return after so many hours on the road. They don't get to these stories as we come, because we are there. I have seen many times that the journalist refuses because he offers an interesting interview to a journalist and the supposed interviewee lives far away. In redactions it happens many times.

What is the media reality in Sao Paulo?

Oh my God! Very well: Although some buy newspapers, in the peripheries the main source of information is television. We are happy because we have seen that the information we publish sometimes has an impact on the big television networks dealing with these issues. Sometimes they ask us for contacts.

J.P. Brito: It is noteworthy that when we have written some articles about the needs of a neighborhood, shortly afterwards, the employees of the City Hall will perform the repairs. These problems were not mentioned in other media, so ours is a kind of pressure.

How many collaborators do you have and how have you made the network?

Oh my God! Very well: Last year, 58 people wrote something in Mural, today we are 80. It must be borne in mind that it is a job that is done in free time and that we all have another job. We met once a year to talk about the project.

J.P. Brito: Until recently, it was not common for poor young people to go to college. Thanks to the social programs promoted by Lula da Silva, we have experienced a great change in Brazil. They created a lot of scholarships, and we two, for example, went to college because of these scholarships. We're the first to have a college degree in our families. The mural agency also responds to this. The young people who arrived at the University knew at some point that there was an agency composed of young people like us, with young people from the periphery who talked about our neighborhoods in an interesting way.

Is your work disseminated in the communities?

Oh my God! Very well: At first we talked about the periphery for the people in the center, but after a lot of discussions between us, we started to change that. We started writing for communities and making our project known. We launched the initiative we call Expo Mural. Because many citizens don't have an Internet connection, we started making calls in neighborhoods for people to read the material that's been worked on the website and pasting it on the street walls. Recently, on Facebook, we've started doing neighborhood groups to bring people together and spread the material, getting easier ways to communicate.

How is Brazil today doing journalism?

J.P. Brito: Very bad. There are factors that make the work of the journalist difficult. I don't have data, but Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries for journalists. Journalism in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro or Brasilia can be safer. To put it mildly, the most urban journalism, at the headquarters of the mainstream media, some are sure to work. But in other places, like the north, the northeast and the south of the country, or where we work, journalists are very simple people, trained, but they have to work on other things as well. The police are very violent and threatening journalists. There are members who have lost their eyes in dealing with demonstrations, who have threatened their families, or who have had to flee Brazil because they were going to be killed. To cite a specific case, the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalists made a film about journalists who were killed last year. This is the case of a journalist who was working on the radio, who one morning denounced the corruption of a local politician and who was murdered in the afternoon by a gunshot. It's terrible and it happens.

What other factors hinder journalism?

J.P. Brito: Another is judicial censorship. Every time the corruption of a politician is denounced, that politician initiates a process against you. The journalist loses money, work, strength... A great social debate is taking place on this subject.

And the third factor is precariousness. In the big drafts they also have a very precarious job. Many journalists don't have a formal record or a vacation, they're low wages that people have to accept for lack of work.

Have you had problems with power?

J.P. Brito: We don't usually deal with issues of violence and crime. The group of murals journalists is important for the monitoring of the peripheries from the aforementioned perspective. There are other media that specifically follow up on other topics. For example, in Brazil we have a very combative and powerful media called Ponte, with experienced journalists, to continue to commit violations of public security and human rights. We sometimes, when we have access to information related to these issues, prefer to give it to them, because they will do better.

Brazil is at a very interesting time as new media are being created, we have the Public Agency doing investigative journalism, there is another medium that does long-term explanatory journalism, without worrying about the last-minute thing. It's part of this mural ecosystem.

How are they funded?

Oh my God! Very well: We are an agency and we charge to publish our content in other media, Folha de S. In Paulo, for example. We are now looking for funding to create a fixed structure through international programmes. We also run a fundraising campaign online. We are trying to diversify funding, but we still have a lot of work to do.

They also report in English. Why?

J.P. Brito: We worked with Global Voices. They publish some of our texts and translate them into other languages. It is also important to be informed in English, otherwise this reality does not exist at international level.

Finally, can you choose a story that you have published in the Mural?

Oh my God! Very well: A year ago, we went from station to station, with a rule, measuring the distance that remains from the train to the platform. The hole reached 91 stations and sometimes 40 centimeters high. We realized that there were a lot of accidents where people were falling, three a day. From that we wrote a special report with all the data on the table. The blow was magnificent, as the railway agency did not have this data either. Then TV went off and reports were made on the same subject, and the government started adding some gums to fix the hole. By chance, repairs were only carried out at the city center stations.

J.P. Brito: The story we did about a building in a favela seemed pretty to me. It had seven floors, but first one was built, after some time another floor on top, then another, then another, and so on until it reached the seven-story floor. All improvised. The question was: How is it possible that this house is standing? And we went with people who build houses, with workers, and the author taught them the keys. It was good.