ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes how this incident has affected journalism in Brazil, shows how journalists have responded to the incident and what lessons they have learned. Discourse organizes memory about critical incidents in journalism. Reflecting on what Brazilian journalism has learned—or failed to learn, in the case of Escola Base—is vital. Brazilian journalists have historically been more concerned with the speed of the news than with its quality, mainly because of competition for first-hand news. The question that still echoes from the Escola Base case, especially at a time when Brazil, like many other countries, is plagued by the proliferation of falsehoods, is: How can journalists defend their authority for a faithful representation of reality? The Escola Base case revealed how ethical breaches impact journalistic credibility and the limitations in how they deal with daily coverage.
