From frigid Sweden to warm Paraíba

Are you familiar with any press ombudsman experiences in Brazil? You probably know about the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper. But are you familiar with the regional pioneering work of the Paraíba ombudsman? An important media criticism experience where many did not expect it to exist. This master’s research - now turned into a book - presents the trajectory of the three ombudsmen of the Correio da Paraíba newspaper. The Paraíba ombudsman was the second to appear in Brazil, two years after Folha de S. Paulo, and was a pioneer in the North/Northeast regions, two years before O Povo in Ceará - these are the only newspapers in the country that currently have a reader representative. The objective here was to trace a history of the three years of the ombudsman’s tenure at Correio, from 1991 to 1993 and again in 1995, taking into account the geographical, political and journalistic context of the time. Using content analysis, the research categorises the 142 columns analysed and performs a qualitative analysis of the corpus based on concepts and reflections on Media Accountability Systems (MAS), media criticism, journalistic and business ethos, and visibility strategies that permeated the experience.