Marcos Faerman was a journalism, professor and administrator. He became famous for creating alternative publications (with literary touches) and remodeling the brazilian press. His reports have survived thru Brazilian military dictatorship and today he is recognized for his great articles. That’s why one of the topics days at Cásper’s Journalism Week 2016 was all about him.
Faerman didn’t used to think that journalism was something objective. He was free, poetic and connected to the world – as all journalists should be. Marcos Faerman also had in his trajectory days of works at famous brazilian newspapers, such as Última Hora, Zero Hora and Jornal da Tarde. He was also a professor, for 3 years, at Cásper Líbero and editor of the laboratory magazine of Cásper, named “Esquinas SP”.
Mediating the 4th table at 24th Cásper Líbero’s Journalism Week, professor Bianca Santana invited Marcos Faerman’s friends and work colleagues to pass on the image of him as a person that would latter on reflect on his texts and sayings on the radio or television and launch the new website dedicated to his hard work on a profession he believed was a republic. Click the link to access the website.
Claudiney Ferreira, from Itaú Cultural, delivered the excitement he had to meet Faerman, a guy who he remembers carrying a heavy bag full of books, during a lecture the journalist delivered at Caudiney’s college and read quotes of an article that changed his live, one that 2nd year students have read with professor Bianca, “As palavras aprisionadas” (or “The Captive Words”) in which Marcos Faerman discusses the role of a reporter towards an assignment that had him to cover a village who survived eating fish from a river contaminated with mercury and saw a man on his boat staring at the same river.
However, Marcos Faerman was conceived by also taking sips of authors and journalists that forever changed both communications and literarute, such as Truman Capote, Guimarães Rosa, Gabriel García Marquez, and many others that led him to fall into what is known by New Journalism, or Literary Journalism, that meaning a writing that evolves deep description of a fact, exploring the humane side of the occurred.
That said, an interesting fact about Marcos Faerman was the chosen name for the alternative newspaper he idealized and ruled for three years (1975 – 1978), Versus, meant both against, as in versus the mainstream media, and verses, since his idea of journalism had the same principles of Literary Journalism. Audálio Dantas, a long term colleage of Faerman in Folha da Tarde, confirmed the previous sentence: “He belonged to Literary Journalism. He was the reference for the New Journalism in the 70’s. But, the model had arrived in Brazil a long time ago with Euclides da Cunha and Joel Silveira”
The Versus Newspaper was a 44-page of diversity. The logo said everything “A paper of adventures, ideias, reports and culture”. With the main goal to write about south America culture and, most importantly, activism.
Neusa Maria Pereira, a black woman that had major influence on the fight against racism and chauvinism, besides co-founding the Abayomi Comunicação and working in many journals and magazines, extoled Marcos encouragement for them to fight for their causes. Neusa told that Faerman was the first editor that not only allowed but insisted that her manifest about the discrimination that black woman endured, during the dictatorship. “Journalism must be allied to social movements”, she complimented.
Renata Moreno had the same point when recurred to the “We Women Newspaper” (Jornal Nós Mulheres) to tell about the encourage Marcos Faerman gave to discuss gender in the 70s. “He gave space for groups gather around to arrange their matters”, said Renata, exemplifying it with the first movement for day cares. He also incentivized her to leave Versus to go on an adventure to meet Indians from the north of Brazil and return with her job still safe. It was with his constant encouragement that the newspaper We Women was launched to share the women view on feminism and discuss several subjects, such as abortion, something that was far more difficult to brought up.
“The Versus was a cauldron where politics and culture merge together”, said Álvaro Bianchi, Politic Science professor in Campinas Estate University (Unicamp).
For Sérgio Gomes, the head of a university complementary course Future Reporter (Projeto Repórter do Futuro), the dead rule the alive. And that is the reason a commission is organizing a course on fiction journalism for next year, so young students can learn from Marcos Faerman’s work.
Marcos Faerman became editor of Esquinas de SP when it was only one year old. Esquinas de SP was an experimental newspaper produced by journalism students of Cásper Líbero assisted by professors. It had only 8 pages and its objective was to reflect about people on the streets and it was handed out by boys and girls who lived on the streets as a money maker. When Faerman became professor in 1996, he also began to rule the paper, publishing his first Esquinas SP in November 1996. The 32-page edition brought a major change in the project, each publish would have a specific matter to elapse, the first was urban tribes (Gangues e Tribos Urbanas). That innovation pursued to exist through the changes Esquinas went through until its 20th birthday. The following 9 Esquinas de SP transmitted dense reports in a format that Marcos also applied on Versus: with cartoons, lyrics between articles. As the following edition after his death notice “ The seeming static caos was a reference to the political and national caos” (O aparente caos estético nada mais era do que uma referência ao caos polítco e nacional – Alexandre Pavan e Alexandre Sayad sobre o Jornal Versus).
“Esquinas de SP shows a new phase in this edition. Plunges passionately – with method, passion, good search, desire to investigate things and characters – at this Paulicéia of neons and anthems; in that megacity; this Iliad and Odyssey; that sea of corners (islands) and time. The little city of the turn of the century is today one of the Planet’s Blade Runners. That doesn’t touch you or you prefer a little camp house?” – Marcos Faerman Esquinas de SP Nov/96
The contribution of Marcos Faerman ended with his death in February 12 of 1999. Now, changed names (from Esquinas de SP to Esquinas), format (from newspaper to magazine) and content (from thematic back to varieties), Esquinas still values the work of Marcos Faerman. Nevertheless, the room where the magazines are produced by students is named after the great journalist and activist Marcos Faerman were and rules inside of the alive, as Sérgio Gomes would say.