Brazilian lawmakers turn public TV into misinformation tool

Brazil’s Senate TV station (TV Senado) was created in February 1996 as a means to increase the transparency of legislative work and bring Brasília’s lawmakers closer to the rest of the country. It began with just 15 hours of programming per day, but would become known to Brazilians a year later through its live broadcasts of a congressional inquiry to investigate irregularities in government securities, which dominated political discussions in 1997.

Since then, TV Senado has expanded to reach some 40 million households, also boasting a YouTube channel with almost 1 million subscribers and over 162 million views. Beyond broadcasting legislative sessions, it also syndicates public interest programming, reports, news shows, and documentaries to other stations. Over 26 years, it has won 23 awards, becoming a valuable platform for lawmakers to enhance their standing in the public eye. 

In the social media era, TV Senado’s reach has grown further, thanks to internet users sharing clips of senators delivering cutting put-downs, especially while the upper house investigates the Jair Bolsonaro government’s pandemic response. At the same time, however, while broadcasting sessions of the Covid inquiry, TV Senado has become a platform for disinformation.

Several members of the hearings committee have used their time on the mic to tout unproven treatments, cast doubt on vaccine efficacy, and rewrite the history of the pandemic in Brazil. Any attempts to set the record straight have been swiftly shut down.

TV Senado intern Jak Spies was fired earlier this year after inserting chyrons correcting misinformation relayed by Senator Marcos Rogério, a loyal supporter of President Bolsonaro in the Covid inquiry. 

On June 22, the committee grilled Congressman Osmar Terra, another Bolsonaro supporter who was accused of being part of a “parallel Health Ministry” which wielded massive...