SÃO PAULO -- Olá from Brazil. I'm here for the launch of the Brasil Post,
in partnership with the Abril Group, one of Latin America's legendary
media companies. For more than half a century, Abril has been telling
the story of Brazil, in the pages of iconic magazines like Veja, Claudia and Exame,
and in its growing portfolio of online publications. We're delighted to
welcome the Brasil Post -- The Huffington Post's first South American
edition, putting us on our fifth continent -- and Abril's fabulous team
to the HuffPost family.
Brazilians are social by nature, both
online and off, making Brazil the perfect place for The Huffington Post
to expand our platform, which is all about conversation and engagement.
With more than 100 million Internet users and more than 50 million smartphones, Brazil is as hyper-connected as any country in the world. It is now the third largest market in the world for Facebook
and the fifth largest for Twitter. In a country as large and diverse as
Brazil, the Brasil Post will welcome all voices -- politicians,
business leaders and academics alongside students, activists and artists
-- and will be a hub where all Brazilians can come to share their
passions or simply cross-post from their own blogs and add a new
distribution channel to what they're already writing.
My first
meeting with the Abril team was a little more than two years ago, in
September 2011, when Roberto Civita, who at the time was Chairman and
CEO of Abril Group, invited me and Nicholas Sabloff, our executive
international editor, to lunch at their offices. Also at the lunch were
Fábio Barbosa, who was on the verge of becoming Abril Media's CEO, and
Manoel Lemos, the company's chief digital officer. It was one of those
moments when everything comes together: we were completely taken with
our hosts' hospitality, humor and passion for using all the tools at
their disposal to tell the story of Brazil and its people.
A few
months later, Roberto, Fábio and Manoel visited us in New York and
convinced me more than ever that Abril was the perfect partner for
HuffPost in Brazil. Our launch today is tinged with sadness because last
May Roberto died unexpectedly from an abdominal aneurysm. Just a few
months before, our CEO Jimmy Maymann and I had lunch with him in New
York, and we were all full of excitement that everything had been worked
out and looking forward to celebrating the launch together in São
Paulo. As a young man, Roberto had told his father Victor, Abril's
founder, that he wanted to start a weekly magazine in the tradition of TIME
-- where Roberto had worked as an intern -- and he went on to shape
Brazilian media for more than half a century, publishing both a roster
of original magazines and Brazilian editions of Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Men's Health, Women's Health and Playboy,
and launching MTV Brasil and the immensely popular women's website
MdeMulher. It means a lot to me that Roberto's wife Maria and his sons
Giancarlo and Victor will be at the launch. This day is dedicated to
him.
So today Abril and HuffPost finally tie the knot, and the
lengthy courtship (by today's standards) makes the consummation of this
romance all the more exciting. I'm very grateful to Fábio, who was with
us from day one and has been so supportive of the partnership. I have
learned a lot from Fábio and Manoel on this journey that began over
lunch in 2011. Together with Ricardo Anderáos,
our editorial director, and Otávio Dias, our editor-in-chief, they
bring a deep knowledge of Brazil and its people, and I have learned a
lot from them.
Brazil in 2014 is a country at once facing big
challenges and brimming with opportunity. In dramatic contrast to what's
happening in America, about 40 million people
in Brazil have moved from poverty into the middle class in the last
decade, fueling a palpable sense that things are getting better. As
Otávio put it, "In less than 25 years, Brazil stabilized the economy,
strongly reduced inequality and created millions of jobs, giving rise to
a new middle class. This is not an achievement of a specific government
or president but a result of democracy and a more mature society."
However,
many challenges remain, from high unemployment and inequality to
corruption, the quality of education and Brazil's infrastructure.
Last
week in Davos, together with a small group of journalists from the
International Media Council, I met with Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first
female president, after her address at a special session. Seizing on one
of the big themes of this year's World Economic Forum, she told us
there's a great need for investors to look beyond the short term and
focus on Brazil's long-term economic trends and developments. She spoke
of Brazil's abundant natural resources, which present big opportunities
for sustainable development and improving Brazilians' quality of life:
"We will transform a finite resource, petroleum, into a lasting one: an
educated population." And in the shortcomings of the country's
infrastructure -- roads, train lines, ports and sanitation systems that
need upgrading -- she sees a win-win opportunity for Brazilians and
foreign investors in the form of public-private partnerships. When I
asked her about the country's high youth unemployment (hovering around
20 percent), she focused on the need to improve educational
opportunities, and the progress Brazil has made over the last 10 years,
lifting 42 million people into the middle class and growing per capita
income by 78 percent. In response to a question that assumed she was
going to win the October election, she laughed, "No one can predict what
happens in a judge's mind, a woman's womb, or a ballot box." And then
she quickly corrected herself: "Well, now thanks to modern science, you
can tell the sex of a baby, but you still can't tell the other two!"
All
these issues will be central to the conversations leading up to the
general elections in October to elect the president, congress, state
governors and legislatures. And the World Cup, which Brazil will host in
June, will not only celebrate the country's proud sporting tradition --
and bring the World Cup to South America for the first time since
Argentina hosted in 1978 -- but shine a light on Brazil's split-screen
reality, its challenges and its promise.
And the Brasil Post will
be covering it all. Through a mix of original reporting and opening up
our blogging platform to voices both new and well-known, we will not
only tell the stories of the news and events shaping Brazil but also
capture the spirit of its people. As we launch new editions
internationally -- Brazil is now our 10th country -- we have discovered
just how eager our readers around the world are to learn about the lives
and traditions of people in countries other than their own. So we'll be
putting the spotlight not just on Brazil's political and business life
but also on all the ways Brazilians unplug and recharge -- including
their active nightlife and tradition of botecos, bars where
people gather for drinks, fingerfoods, conversation and music. And of
course we'll be covering Brazilians' passion for futebol, and the beach culture of Brazil's many coastal communities.
Beyond
publishing, Abril includes the Victor Civita Foundation, which since
1985 has helped to improve basic education throughout the country.
Putting the spotlight on what is working in Brazil, including private
sector, nonprofit and philanthropic initiatives, will be central to our
coverage. Our partnership positions the Brasil Post to combine the best
of the old and the best of the new in order to tell the stories that
matter most in Brazil -- and just as important, to help Brazilians tell
their stories themselves.
And now, a little more about our team.
Our editorial director Ricardo Anderáos has been the social media
director at the Abril Group and worked as a reporter and editor for
several Brazilian outlets, including Estadao.com, where he was
editor-in-chief, and MTV Brasil, where he was head of digital. He and I
have bonded not just over our agreement on our editorial priorities but
over his Third Metric
lifestyle. Together with his wife and three children, he lives on the
island of Ilhabela and commutes to the office in São Paulo. On the
island, he meditates in the Nyingma Tibetan tradition and nurtures his
passion for the environment by tending to a nursery of native trees from
Brazil's most endangered rainforest, Mata Atlântica.
Brasil
Post's editor-in-chief, Otávio Dias, has worked at some of Brazil's most
influential newspapers and websites. In 12 years at Folha de S. Paulo, he served as London correspondent and as an assigning editor on the paper's international desk, and at O Estado de S. Paulo he was tech editor and editor of the paper's website. He loves to sing and to practice yoga.
We kick off with blogs from Congressman Marcelo Freixo on the problems of the Brazilian prison system; renowned journalist Gilberto Dimenstein on how to practice journalism in the new media era; popular transgender writer Laerte with a comic strip on how it feels to grow up; the feminist and entrepreneur Bianca Santana on her experience wearing a turban in her daily life; and journalist Renata Rangel on how her decision to move from the city to the countryside was influenced by Third Metric values.
So bem-vindo to the Brasil Post! As always, use the comments section to let us know what you think.
