The political shock of the year: The press and Celso Pitta’s election to São Paulo’s City Hall

Abstract

According to the leading Brazilian newspapers and magazines, the surprising elections of the Black economist Celso Pitta to São Paulo’s City Hall materialized “the political shock of the year” in 1996. Considering the meaning of this victory, since it is still rare the cases of Black politicians winning mayor position in Brazil’s major cities, it is comprehensible that Pitta’s election has become such an important political and journalistic event. This article analyzes the news coverage granted by A Folha de São Paulo and O Estado de São Paulo to Celso Pitta’s campaigns and to his opponents in 1996 São Paulo’s mayoral elections. Besides aiming to reveal the pattern of news coverage of the two main Paulistas newspapers in the election that took to the power the first black mayor of São Paulo, this paper discusses the influence of the racial and gender representations in the rhetoric of those newspapers, in constructing the candidates’ images and electoral agenda.