In the last episode, the third of this SIC-Express investigation, we detailed the way they both used the such & which to serve their own interests and their clients, defaming public figures, competitors or enemies of some of these customers, or simply hatred of the two promoters.
José Paulo Fafe bought Tá & which Marco Galinha, for a symbolic value, in June 2021. Through the company stop the machines, Fafe owned 70% of the newspaper. In April 2023, the businessman officially abdicated the control of the journal. Weeks later, Fafe calls the GMG of Marco Galinha. In September 2023, it assumes the executive presidency of the group.
The such & which is only sold in June 2024. The newspaper is acquired by a group of businessmen from the North, led by Paulo Teixeira. Teixeira is a deputy at the Porto Municipal Assembly, elected on Rui Moreira’s lists.
The sale of the newspaper did not dictate, however, the end of the influence of José Paulo Fafe. Until April 2025, Teixeira and the partners kept in the direction Manuel Catarino, an inheritance of Fafe.
The headlines with Marcelo, Ana Gomes and Balsmano
We have evaluated the 196 editions of the newspaper since the return, on June 9, 2021, until March 5, 2025. 196 covers through which public figures are paraded that the newspaper Difama and Dizima.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa leads the list of the most mistreated personalities by the newspaper. The President of the Republic was a negative headline 45 times.
Ana Gomes, former MEPSPutada of PS, is the second, with 21 highlights, all related to housing in Azóia, in the municipality of Sintra, that the socialist owns. The newspaper fueled a narrative that forced the demolition of the pool and the annexes. The former MEOputada accuses Luis Bernardo of being behind the negative campaign that the newspaper has set up against her.
Bernardo works for Mário Ferreira, the businessman who controls the Media Capital, the owner of TVI and CNN Portugal. Mário Ferreira sued Ana Gomes for defamation, four times, but lost the four lawsuits. The socialist understands that the owner of TVI/CNN arranged a way to take revenge, creating conditions for the matters related to the housing housing to arrange in such a & which.
Mário Ferreira rejected us to give us an interview on this article, but in a written statement, he refused any involvement in Bernardo and Fafe’s black campaigns.
Francisco Pinto Balsemão, chairman of the board of directors of the Impresa Group, owner of SIC and Expresso, a direct competitor of Mário Ferreira, is the third public figure to receive the largest volume of negative headlines of the newspaper.
Balsmah finds no explanation for what he considers to be an obsession of such a & which one. The newspaper, concludes the entrepreneur in a written statement, “is less concerned with sales and more obsessed with pursuing, disrupting and seeking to slaughter their targets.”
Carlos Coins a target of the newspaper?
With the same number of negative headlines as Francisco Pinto Balsemão, 20, Carlos Coins appears. The newspaper attacks, above all, the management of the mayor of Lisbon. A source very close to Carlos Coins assured SIC and Expresso that the owner of Tal & which, José Paulo Fafe, asked for coins that the mayor of Lisbon denied. On that day, coins will have become a negative target of the newspaper.
José Paulo Fafe and Luís Bernardo did not answer the direct questions we sent them about the victims of the one. Fafe, however, wanted to leave this protest:
“I deeply regret the misplaced assumptions, the offensive content and the intolerable underlying insinuations in these issues, where, the more it is, the seriousness, the professionalism and ethics of the journalists of such a thing, which I cannot fail to refer to the deepest repudiation.”
One of the signs that indicates the existence of a hidden society between Bernardo and Fafe is in this information that Sic-Expressed investigation has come: between 2021, the year and which one returned from darkness, and 2024, WLP, the company of Luís Bernardo, transferred almost 260 thousand euros to the three companies of José Paulo Fafe, including almost 60,000 to stop the machines, the one and which, which 70% detained by Fafe, officially until April 2023. Bernardo and Fafe did not want to explain the reason for these money transfers.
Luís Bernardo’s links to the media to the media
For seven months we have identified the calls of Bernardo, former press officer of former Prime Minister José Sócrates, with other communications sector who, articulated, will have created a business network that may have guaranteed contracts with public organizations, especially authorities of the Socialist Party. Luís Bernardo is a PS militant and was a leader of the socialist youth.
We analyzed, in detail, the strong links of Luís Bernardo to the media, from the outset to two groups – Global Media Group (GMG) and Media Capital – where the entrepreneur provided and provides advisory services.
These calls will have been decisive so that in 2023 Marco Galinha’s GMG had alienated the control to a fund, the World Opportunity Fund (WOF), where Angolan entrepreneur Álvaro Sobrinho has direct interests.
During the six months when Wof took over DN management, JN, TSF and the game, newspapers and radio suffered a remarkable break, with the threat of dismissal from 150 to 200 workers, including journalists and columnists. A few dozen really ended up leaving. TSF programs were all suspended.
In March 2024, the Communication Regulatory Entity (ERC) decided to suspend the rights of the WOF, declaring a lack of transparency. The regulator required information about the true owners of the Fund, but the representative, José Paulo Fafe, never provided them. Following ERC’s decision, GMG control was resumed by Marco Galinha.
The SIC-Express investigation proved that, in addition to Luis Bernardo, José Paulo Fafe also played a decisive role in the alienation of GMG to the WOF. Fafe was eventually appointed executive president of the DN owner group, JN, TSF and the game.
SIC-Expresso Investigation
Data Sheet:
Journalists: Pedro Coelho, Filipe Teles and Micael Pereira
Image: João Venda
Image Editing: Andrés Gutierrez
Graphics: Pedro Morais
Coordination: Luís Gariapa
Direction: Marta Reis and Bernardo Ferrão
