(Para ler a versão desse artigo em Português, clique aqui.)

What was the most powerful man in Brazil, the billionaire heir of the Globo empire, João Roberto Marinho (above), doing in the comment section of The Guardian? Granted: His comment received a coveted “Recommended” tag from Guardian editors — congratulations, João! — but still, it is not the place one expects to find a multibillionaire plutocratic Brazilian heir.

On Friday, April 21, I published an op-ed in The Guardian, in which I posed numerous questions about the impeachment process against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, as well as the role played by the dominant Brazilian media, led by Globo. João responded with anger — and with obvious falsehoods. As one can see, João criticized my article by calling me a liar in various ways in his response.

Look, João: Like virtually all Brazilians, I had to battle a great deal to earn my place in life. I did not inherit a huge company and billions of dollars from my parents. The things I have had to overcome in my life are far more burdensome than your effort to discredit me with condescension, and it is thus not difficult to demonstrate that your response was filled with falsehoods.

In fact, João’s response deserves more attention than a mere comment because it is full of deceitful propaganda and pro-impeachment falsehoods — exactly what he tries to deny Globo has been spreading — and thus reveals a great deal (today, Guardian editors upgraded João’s comment into a full-fledged letter!).

Before addressing what João does say, let’s begin with something he neglects to mention: Globo’s long-standing role in Brazil. Under the rule of his father, Roberto Marinho, Globo cheered and glorified the 1964 military coup that removed Brazil’s democratically elected left-wing government. Far worse, Globo, under the Marinho family, spent the next 20 years as the powerful propaganda arm of the brutal military dictatorship that tortured and killed dissidents and suppressed all dissent. In 1984, Globo simply and deliberately lied to the country when its on-air anchor described a massive pro-democracy protest in São Paulo as a celebration of the city’s birthday. The Marinho family’s wealth and power grew as a direct result of their servitude to Brazil’s military dictators.

When anti-government protests erupted in 2013, by which time the military coup was widely despised by Brazilians, Globo’s history became a huge corporate embarrassment. So they did what all corporations do once their bad acts begin to hurt their brand: They finally acknowledged what they did and apologized for it (and separately apologized for their lie about the 1984 protest). But they tried to dilute their responsibility by noting (accurately) that the other media outlets that still dominate Brazilian media and have been as supportive of Dilma’s undemocratic exit (such as Estadão and Folha) also supported that coup, and they downplayed the role of Globo in supporting not only the coup but also the 20-year dictatorship that followed.

That is the ugly history of Globo and the Marinho family in Brazil, a major source of their wealth and power, and a reflection of the role they — and their highly paid TV personalities — continue to play. It’s the same family running Globo now, governed by the same tactics and goals. That is not the conduct of a genuine media outlet. It is the conduct of an oligarchical family using its media outlet to shape and manipulate public opinion for its own purposes. Now, to João’s comment:

Mr. David Miranda’s article (“The real reason Dilma Rousseff’s enemies want her impeached,” from April 21, published by The Guardian) paints a completely false picture of what is happening in Brazil today. It fails to mention that everything began with an investigation (named Operation Car Wash), which in turn revealed the largest bribery scheme and corruption scandal in the country’s history, involving leading members of the ruling Workers Party (PT), as well as leaders of other parties in the government coalition, public servants and business moguls.

What is “completely false” is João’s attempt to deceive readers into believing that Dilma’s impeachment is due to Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash). It is true that PT, like most of the major parties, has been revealed to be full of major corruption problems, and that many PT officials have been implicated by Lava Jato. But the case for Dilma’s impeachment is not based in any of that, but rather in claims that she manipulated the budget to make it look stronger than it was.

João’s misleading attempt to confuse a foreign audience by mixing the corruption and bribery scandals of Car Wash with Dilma’s impeachment exemplifies exactly the kind of pro-impeachment deceit and bias Globo has been institutionally disseminating for more than a year.

Beyond that, the political figures that Globo has been cheering and that impeachment will install — including Vice President Michel Temer and House Speaker Eduardo Cunha of the PMDB party — are, unlike Dilma, accused of serious personal corruption, proving that when people like João cite corruption to justify impeachment, that is merely the pretext for undemocratically removing the leader they dislike and installing the one they like.

The Brazilian press in general, and the Globo Group in particular, fulfilled their duty to inform about everything, as would have been the case in any other democracy in the world.

The suggestion that Globo is a neutral, unbiased news organization — rather than the leading propaganda arm of the Brazilian oligarchy — is laughable to anyone who has ever seen its programs. Indeed, the bias of Globo, and in particular its leading nightly news show, Jornal Nacional, has been so extreme that it is now the source of regular mockery. There’s a reason pro-democracy street protesters choose Globo buildings as their target.