The Press: Joke

The Editor of Brazil’s O Estado de Sao Paulo sat reading a copy of TIME. He thought back to the hectic week when millions of Brazilians were positive that delectable “Miss Brazil” would be crowned “Miss Universe” at Galveston, Tex. He remembered how the whole Rio and San Paulo press printed “sure thing” predictions, relying on despatches from leading U. S. news services. Rio got the impression that Manhattan males were well nigh frenzied over “Miss Brazil,” that her progress through the U. S. was like the triumph of a Roman Emperor. Even Rio’s carefully edited Cerreio de Manha complacently compared the goodwill voyages of “Miss Brazil” and Herbert Hoover.

Ruffling the pages of TIME, the editor of O Estado saw that, a week before the Galveston pulchritude show, TIME, conscious of the high hopes in Brazil, had said:

“Whether Brazilian editors knew it or not. Miss Brazil was but one of many Manhattan arrivals from far lands for the Galveston contest. Her presence, like theirs, received nothing more than routine mention, even in the tabloid press.”

Last week O Estado de Sao Paulo credited TIME with truth telling, flayed spot news stories, cabled from Manhattan and Galveston as “grossly exaggerated, largely false and forged in the correspondents’ warm imaginations in an effort to flatter Brazilian readers or ‘put over’ a joke.”