Veja (magazine)
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| Veja | |
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| Diretor de Redação | Eurípedes Alcântara |
| Categories | News |
| Frequency | weekly |
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Publisher |
Editora Abril |
| Paid Circulation | 1,099,653 |
| First Issue | September 11, 1968 |
| Country |  Brazil |
| Language | Portuguese |
| Website | veja.com.br |
| ISSN | 0100-7122 |
Veja (Portuguese: "Look") is the leading weekly Brazilian news magazine, with a circulation of more than 1,200,000 as of 2005; this is the most circulated magazine in Brazil, fourth most circulated in the world. The magazine approaches subjects regarding daily of the Brazilian society as the politics, economy, culture, behavior, world events, and wars. It treats subjects as technology, ecology and religion with certain regularity. It has recurring sections on cinema, practical literature, music and guides on diverse subjects.
It is distributed by Editora Abril. It was founded in September 1968, and was censored by the Brazilian military regime from 1969 to 1976.
Not all major articles in Veja are signed.
Columnists in the magazine include Diogo Mainardi, Stephen Kanitz, Tales Lighter, and Lya Luft.
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[edit] Article on Wikipedia
In January 23, 2005, Veja published an unsigned article about Wikipedia entitled "Written by whomever wants to", shedding doubts on the encyclopedia's reliability. According to the article, the freedom entailed by Wikipedia is a cause for its success, but "it is also Wikipedia's greatest flaw, because its articles are subject to ignorants and ill-disposed [individuals]". It goes on to draw a comparison with Encyclopædia Britannica, whose first article on psychoanalysis was, according to Veja, written by Sigmund Freud.
The magazine stated that Wikipedia's correction mechanism "works better in subjects in which many people are interested [...], such as technology. It becomes disastrous in obscure or political themes". Veja made a test to try to prove their point. In the article on Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the magazine allegedly inserted the information that he was born in "a big city in the industrial state of Pernambuco". This is incorrect because Lula (as he is better known in Brazil) was born in a small village, and Pernambuco cannot be considered an industrial state by Brazilian standards. Veja claimed the fake info stayed online for 2 days, until they removed it themselves.
The history log for that article shows that such a change was made on January 17 2005, by User:200.196.241.1, and was reverted by the same user on January 19.
Among the Wikipedia community, this is known as sneaky vandalism. Some Wikipedians expressed their dislike for Veja's attitude. See for instance the talk page for this article.
[edit] Criticism
Although Veja is the largest magazine in Brazil in terms of circulation and a recognized opinion leader, critics of Veja [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] (links in Portuguese) (commonly left-wing press watchers and political parties) accuse the magazine of being superficial, biased and elitist. They point that the publication, that would be analogous to TIME Magazine and Newsweek, perpetrates factual distortions and biographical defamation. The magazine's recurring criticisms of the Lula administration are singled out as being part of a greater right-wing bias.
The magazine's attitude towards its media competitors is also sometimes frowned upon, as Veja consistently scoffs at alleged factual mistakes committed by other periodicals.
