NA PANDEMIA DE COVID-19 EM GUIA LOPES DA LAGUNA (MS): a produção de conteúdo nos quase-desertos de notícia

Abstract

Marked in Brazil by inequality in access to biosecurity measures and the speed of contagion, the Covid-19 pandemic affected the cities in the interior in a different way than the capitals and large centers. The role of the local and regional media was of fundamental importance in disseminating information about the coronavirus, from the first months of the pandemic, from February 2020. In Mato Grosso do Sul, the small municipality of Guia Lopes da Laguna became the epicenter of the disease after the contamination of a truck coming from the state of São Paulo to the city's slaughterhouse, the region's main economic source. Local media and the press from the interior became a way to give voice to the demands of communities and promoted a sense of geographic identity for local residents, such as rural cities and far from large centers, according to Abernathy (2018), a pioneer in the conceptualization of news desert. The objective of this work was to analyze the journalistic coverage produced in the newspaper with the largest circulation and oldest in the municipality, Jornal Estado do Pantanal, during the months of May 2020 and May 2021, based on the application of the Journalistic Coverage Analysis Protocol , proposed by Silva (2011). In order to define the object, it was also necessary to map and characterize the media of Guia Lopes da Laguna through in-depth interviews, personally, with those responsible for the other two vehicles: Rádio FM Kadiwéus and Sudoeste MS NEWS. In the end, it was found that, even though the radio is community and the Jornal Estado do Pantanal has wide distribution in the printed and online segments, the influence of power agents is still present in the vehicles, mainly City Councils and City Halls, since that finance newspaper companies. It was also found that, in the case of the vehicle in the radio segment, the employees are not remunerated, in addition to the fact that the three representatives of the vehicles do not have training in the area of communication. The application of the Protocol also showed that, of the 202 articles collected in the period, only 11 had their own production, still influenced by vices of official sources, such as the secretary of health of Guia Lopes da Laguna and the mayor, and by the simple reproduction of epidemiological bulletins disclosed by the supervisory and control bodies.