The Brazilian media group, Globo, has issued an unexpected apology for supporting the country's 21-year military dictatorship.
Its main newspaper, O Globo, ran a 1,300-word piece on 31 August admitting it had made "a mistake" by acting as the propaganda arm of Brazil's often brutal dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.
This apology (here in Portuguese) came out of the blue after almost 50 years of denial by the paper's editors and owners, the Marinho family.
The editorial said: "After many years, in internal discussions, the Globo Organisation recognise that, in the light of history, this support was a mistake."
It also named several other media outlets as being complicit, such as O Estado de Sao Paulo, Folha de Sao Paulo, Jornal do Brasil and Correio da Manha.
The apology was condemned by left-of-centre critics as not going far enough. Some scorned it as a marketing strategy.
And a right-wing group that holds annual celebrations of the 1964 coup said it was a two-faced retraction.
I was asked by a London-based Brazilian journalist if I could remember a case of a British newspaper apologising for having taken the wrong editorial line.
I was unable to help (and not just because we haven't had a military coup). Does anyone else have an example, I wonder.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion