O GLOBO: proud of our history, looking to the future - O GLOBO

The greatest achievement of O GLOBO in nearly a century was to completely redefine what Brazilians understand by a newspaper. In 1925, there were many publications with news printed on paper. In Rio de Janeiro alone, then the capital, there were over 20. Those newspapers from 99 years ago were made with clear pages and black ink. The covers prominently displayed the edition time, so readers knew how new (or old) the information was. The texts were lengthy, sometimes laid out between small photos and cartoons, sometimes divided into columns without a single illustration. The press consisted of bohemian journalists, generally novelists, poets, and aspiring writers who balanced their newsroom jobs with other occupations and ended the night in taverns. The newspapers were almost always linked to political parties.

It was in this environment that, on July 29, 1925, Irineu Marinho founded O GLOBO, the starting point of Grupo Globo, which begins today, through this supplement, the countdown to its centennial. However, he had a different vision of what a newspaper should be.

Today, that same O GLOBO is made with screens or pages of all colors. It is updated 24 hours a day, every day of the week, with texts, images, videos, and audios in different formats and sizes, in the way that is most comfortable and relevant for the reader. Through the hands of the daily, a newspaper went (literally) to war, transformed into cultural and gastronomic events, opened stages for debates of ideas, both in-person and virtual, launched trends, shifted the country's calendar, and updated dictionary entries.

This transformation began back in 1925. With experiences at publications like Diário de Notícias, A Notícia, A Tribuna, and A Gazeta de Notícias, Irineu launched his first outlet in 1911, named A Noite. O GLOBO came later, as a consequence of years of experience as a proofreader, reporter, editorial secretary, and director of the different outlets he worked with. For his new project, he already dreamed of a modern press that would position itself on both major national issues and everyday problems. And it would be, above all, independent.

An analysis of that inaugural edition of GLOBO encapsulates the proposals of its founder. The first copies hit the streets at 6 PM that July 29, a Wednesday, priced at 100 réis, and were purchased by 33,435 readers. The headline (“Eyes turn to our rubber!”) was a bold approach. The story was about American businessman Henry Ford's trip to Pará, but Irineu believed a news story was more than just a fact. O GLOBO needed to explain to the reader what that visit from a car manufacturer looking for raw materials for his industrial revolution meant.

Alongside the necessity of contextualizing major events, the dream for the new newspaper included attention to the everyday lives of readers. O GLOBO was not about Brazil but for Brazil. Even in that first edition, the newspaper featured on its front page a photo of a pothole in the Engenho Novo neighborhood, in Rio, which according to the text of the time, “swallowed everything, cars, chauffeurs, passengers, gasoline, and even horses.” The story, with the sarcasm that would become a trademark, was accompanied by the announcement that the newspaper had covered the hole with a temporary lid until the city completed the work. The text stated: “a small service provided to the public by O GLOBO.”

Irineu Marinho passed away on August 21, 1925, at the age of 49, less than a month after the founding, from a heart attack. The desire to make O GLOBO a modern newspaper, however, remained alive in the following decades with his sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons. With Roberto Marinho, Irineu's eldest son who was a reporter at the beginning of the newspaper, taking over its direction in 1931 and remaining active until his death in 2003, O GLOBO consolidated itself as the vehicle envisioned by its founder.

In 99 years, O GLOBO has countless times impacted Brazilian history, culture, and behavior. National traditions, such as Father's Day celebrated in August and Santa Claus arriving by helicopter at Maracanã, were born from campaigns developed by the newspaper—the first in 1953, the second in 1968. The term “gibi,” now synonymous with comic book, was the name of a publication by the newspaper sold at newsstands from 1939. The “Bonequinho,” a symbol for film criticism in Brazil, was born in 1938 by the idea of Rogério Marinho, son of Irineu, brother of Roberto, and at the time vice-president of O GLOBO.

Innovations in Brazilian press, such as the first telephoto (1936), the first color radiophoto (1959), and the first color telephoto (1979) debuted in O GLOBO. The newspaper was the first in the country to circulate on January 1, coincidentally and tragically starting in 1989, the day after the Bateau Mouche tragedy on Rio's New Year’s Eve. It was also responsible for the first online music festival during the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, a week after WHO warned of the disease's risks: called #tamojunto, the action was “a free music festival for those who already understood that quarantine is the best form of prevention.”

Traditional events and actions in Brazilian culture, like Rio Gastronomia, Projeto Aquarius, and Estandarte de Ouro, were created and are still held by O GLOBO. In the early 1930s, the newspaper sponsored the Rio Carnival competition even before the parades became part of Rio's official calendar. At the end of the 1940s, it launched the campaign for the construction of a football stadium for the 1950 World Cup, hosted in Brazil, which led to the creation of Maracanã.

Currently, in challenging times for the press, O GLOBO has led the way in digital transformation in Brazil. It has never had so many readers. There are, on average, 40 million users every month on its digital platforms, consolidating it as the country's largest newspaper.

These are all initiatives that continued Irineu Marinho's project. The latest of these innovations, developed and launched by O GLOBO in June, was an artificial intelligence project to streamline newsroom processes and improve reader experience. This project, not coincidentally, was named Irineu. And it is with a vocation for constant innovation that we open the celebrations of our 100 years, as the title of this article suggests: proud of our history, looking to the future.

The translation of this text into english was carried out by Project Irineu, O GLOBO's initiative to develop artificial intelligence tools. Here is the link to the original report.

The translation of this text into english was carried out by Project Irineu, O GLOBO's initiative to develop artificial intelligence tools. Here is the link to the original report.