Died on Monday (28), reference of journalism of Sheetat 74. He was hospitalized at the Copa D’Or Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, where he was treating brain cancer.
In its first passage through Sheetin the 1980s, Beraba was responsible for structuring the roofs of the writing, helping to enable the newly implemented editorial project of the newspaper, critic, pluralistic and apartiário.
The journalist, guided investigative reports and encouraged the emergence of new talents. In almost three decades in the newspaper, he was a reporter, director of the Rio de Janeiro branch, editor of direct policy and supplement, as well as secretary of writing, ombudsman and special reporter.
He was also one of the founders and the first president of Abraji (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism). Before retiring in 2019, he held the positions of director of the Rio de Janeiro Branch of Brasilia and editor-in-chief of the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, where he worked for 11 years.
“Marcelo Beraba had the habit of calling all the” Master “writing colleagues, but he was the journalism teacher, who taught more than one generation principles of ethics, professionalism and accuracy. It will be immensely lacking,” says Sérgio Dávila, director of writing at writing Sheet. The vocative, used so many times, ended up becoming a nickname of himself.
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Beraba began his career at age 20, even before graduating from UFRJ (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), as a reporter of cities and culture of the newspaper O Globo. During this period, he published a striking hole in his career: the young reporter obtained photos of surgery from the injured captain at the Riocentro attack in 1981, which helped to link the military to the attack. Its discovery would be decisive for the beginning of the direct movement already.
Beraba joined Sheet As a reporter for the Rio de Janeiro branch, whose command took over in 1985. In office, he coordinated the coverage of the leakage of and the revelation of the atomic installation.
He moved in 1988 to Sao Paulo. In the state capital, Beraba was the editor of cities and politics, coordinating the following year the supplement -89, about the first presidential election after 21 years, with a dispute between 22 candidates.
Corresponding to the importance of that coverage, the supplement team consisted of 60 journalists. The colleagues recognized the organization of Beraba, which even left two editions prepared for the print, one with Lula’s scenario against Fernando Collor in the second round and one with a scenario of uncertainty about who would compete with Collor.
“Marcelo Beraba was a ‘chef’ who gave consistency to the journalistic cuisine of Sheet. He taught the newspaper to structure and plan large coverage and formed a generation of reporters in the São Paulo press. Guiding, guiding, remembering the questions that needed to be asked in a coverage, he was worth a whole school of journalism within the newsroom, “says Matinas Suzuki Jr., who was the executive editor of Sheetin a statement published by Abraji.
In the same publication, journalist Juca Kfouri, columnist for Sheetsays that Berab “among so many qualities had to be firm and sweet at the same time.” “It shone with low profile and excel in common sense. It is already missing,” he adds.
In the 1990s, Beraba assumed the position of executive editor of Jornal do Brasil and had a brief passage in O Globo. Back to Sheethe was again director of the Rio Branch, from 1999 to 2004, the year he became the newspaper’s ombudsman. In an interview with the Press Observatory Program, a decade ago, Beraba evaluated the impact of the internet on newsrooms.
“There is this challenge that you organize the edition to try to organize this chaos, this confusion, with readers who took a little thing here and from there and think they are informed,” said Beraba. “And it has the challenge of deepening the information, the journalist’s qualification has been increasingly a requirement due to a more qualified audience than the oldest audience.”
In September 2002, shaken by the murder of his friend, also journalist Tim Lopes, Beraba fired an email to another 40 colleagues, suggesting the creation of an association in defense of freedom of expression, access to public information and vocational training. It was the beginning of what would become Abraji.
“Tim Lopes is proud of Abraji. At the same time, I’m sure he would be demanding even more than we did,” Beraba told a statement to the association, published 12 years ago.
“Freedom of expression was also quite associated with the question of TIM. Not only from the legal point of view, but from the physical point of view, the freedom to work, to pass the information. The problems we have to this day are evident, with the continuation of murders and threats.”
President of the Association, journalist Katia Brembatti highlights the generosity that marked the trajectory of the colleague. “He helped form thousands of journalists and coordinate large investigations without having to have the protagonism,” he says.
In 2005, Beraba received, in Washington, the United States, the Excellence in Journalism of the International Center for Journalism (ICFJ). “Journalism is joint, it’s team, it’s exchange. I always found. The richness of journalism is in the whole,” Beraba said in an interview with the Press Observatory.
He leaves his wife, journalist Elvira Lobato, four children and three grandchildren. Marcelo Beraba’s funeral will be on Wednesday (30), from 12:30 to 15:30, in Chapel 6 of the Carmo Memorial, in Caju, Rio de Janeiro.
