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A journalistic suite is the continuation of a news story in new articles that update previous ones.  Something like: "Two people were injured in an accident"; then, "Men injured in accident undergo surgery"; further, "Men injured in accident discharged from hospital"; and finally, "Company responsible for accident involving injuries fined." All these sensational headlines relate to the same original event.

Not every type of news warrants a continuation. Some events and accomplishments have the momentum for a single appearance.  However, to appear once or several times in the newspaper, the "thing" must truly be news, which basically means it's not advertising or propaganda – but that's a topic for another time.

In terms of format, a suite is no different from a new news story. After all, a continuation only exists when a new fact is revealed. But it's in style, from what I've observed, that the "marmita das suítes azedou" – meaning why they've lost momentum in recent years.  ("Marmita das suítes azedou" is an idiom meaning roughly that the suites have gone stale or lost their appeal).

Let's take a police investigation as an example.  Journalism of both good and poor quality is interested in criminal stories. However, in both types of quality, a flavor of vice remains, perhaps originating from the pleasure of "scooping" (when a journalist is the first to report something).  It's a haste that hinders more than it helps: not infrequently, versions are presented that collaborate with a story one wants to tell, which may have nothing to do with what actually happened.

Telling the Whole Story

In the case of Armed man threatens Black youth in São Paulo, and police officer refuses to act because she's 'off-duty'; watch video (sense-based translation), for example. This is a story that quickly captured the attention of journalists and the public because a video proves not only the omission of a police officer but also her aggression against a young man. Here, whether the police officer was right or wrong is not under discussion. At the same time, due to the lack of suites, the broader context of the three-minute video was missing.

A story told because of its intriguing nature can yield minutes of viewership and an increase in website visitors. However, without continuity, it's shooting oneself in the foot. In 2023, the Reuters Institute's Digital News Report identified that Brazilians' trust in journalism is 43%, a decrease of 19 percentage points since 2015. Statistically, the downward trend may reach 41% in 2024. In this scenario, all resources of intelligence and integrity are welcome to improve these numbers.

Suites are an opportunity to assure the public that editorial choices represent, even if against the majority view, the vehicle's commitment to a story told from beginning to end, with all its nuances. For this, the editorial line as a whole, and even more so the reporters and editors, must approach investigative activity with the detachment of recounting things as they are, and not as they should be.

The invitation to transformation can stem from countless motivations. In business, for example, it might originate from the founders' or managers' need to increase productivity and, consequently, profits by creating a happiness-conducive environment. In government initiatives, boosting the morale of public servants and partners through a sense of security and recognition is a way to enhance creativity and accelerate project completion. These are legitimate motivations.  However, these plans tend to fail miserably, despite excellent intentions, if the issuer of the invitation doesn't demonstrate that they have undergone the same transformations they propose, and that these transformations have brought them closer to a good life.

The term "good life" can be viewed from numerous perspectives, from the wise to the theoretical. It can be explored through the lenses of philosophy, democracy, and critical theory (Habermas is frequently associated with such research), but we are concerned with its accessible and humane version: a life that has found a sufficiently good path to lessen suffering. A life that suffers less is a good life.

Maturity, which clearly has little to do with age, always demands greater coherence. Coherence saves energy, saves time. The coherent universe uses its power to create lights, small and distant stars.  Nature, coherent in its actions, doesn't think twice before unleashing the sea upon the continent when it must. One doesn't negotiate with a cyclone, with a volcanic eruption. Who has ever been able to schedule a meeting with the earth's depths and cancel an earthquake? The apparent chaos of the environment is, in truth, the coherence of life.

We, a fragile humanity facing the forces of nature and the suffering inflicted by others, learn, then, that coherence is an ally of life. It is coherent for an individual who believes themselves to be inferior to others to emit signals that organize the consummation of their perceptions. It is coherent for someone who believes, erroneously of course, that they are superior or better than others to construct scenarios that prove them right. The moral of the story is: every human life, wise to its very core, organizes the world to continue living. If the only way of life they have learned is one of subjugation, humiliation, and begging for affection, it is coherent to continue in that way, precisely to survive.

Civil defense, however, sends SMS alerts when the risk of severe storms is imminent. Receiving an invitation to transformation is like a civil defense alert. It's a warning that beliefs and behaviors are about to cause further harm. Is it possible to prevent it? Through coherence: most likely not. But it is possible to create contingency plans, future plans. It is possible to vacate dangerous areas of the soul, to move to higher, more sober, and refreshing landscapes.

As for me (in the following paragraphs, I choose not to use the traditional Freudian first-person plural), I no longer dare invite any brother (as I call other humans) to anything that might delay or interrupt their path.

Long before believing in improvements in the quality of analysis, research, or technique, I have a devotion to human freedom. It can go wherever it wants, and it will always have, whenever I am able and it is appropriate, my companionship.

If I possessed a universal truth, I would present it, and without any need for persuasion, it would be widely accepted. This is never the case, because what I understand as truth may make no sense whatsoever to my brother. But I have one truth or another, not universal, that is sometimes kind.

The truth is, I usually confess to my intellectual and political critics that I am in search of a map of coherence. And I can't wait to change my mind on what can be changed! In any case, I have accomplished the feat of being relevant to myself, which is a great deal. This saves me from falling for the rhetoric of imposters.

With this, I hope I have made it clear that I cannot, neither today nor in the future, promise that I have the revelation of a secret, an infallible method, a miracle that can bring laughter and money. I leave those promises to those who have experience with them: those who deceive and those who are deceived (and almost always pay, in money, for it). This does not, however, disqualify me as a salesperson. Under ethical conditions, as a telemarketing representative, I was the best at selling automatic debit payments at Tim Sul S/A, in some month of 2004, a year before starting my professional life in journalism.

When you hire me, you will remunerate me for what I can do for the transformation you seek for yourself and your business. And it will always be far more expensive than those who deceive. If coherence is a life differentiator, what more can be said of the market?

I am a little freer, and a little happier, today than I was yesterday. My realistic observation (although I am a serene pessimist) of life is a disillusioned sigh. When, at 15 years old, I suffered bitterly the end of a relationship that had been the best thing in my entire life, and that would never be repeated, because that was my only opportunity for happiness, and at that moment I only had to live in mourning until my solitary death, a friend who could have been my great-grandfather told me: “Vine, do you know what the advantage of being disillusioned is? It's not being deluded.”

At first, ceasing to believe in promises makes one uncomfortable.  Later, it becomes a lifestyle so sincere, so honest, so coherent. I stopped demanding that others be what I expect them to be. And I don't care when they demand that I be what I am not. It goes in one ear and out the other. I still suffer, but in a good life, one that suffers less. In the end, who would have thought, I am a happy man, to the extent possible.