History
Jornal Nacional premiered on September 1, 1969, hosted by Hilton Gomes and Cid Moreira.
During the 1970s, Jornal Nacional preferred to emphasize international news and sports. The gales documentary Beyond Citizen Kane suggests that this happened so that Globo wouldn't have to report the repression of the military dictatorship, which would have provided a substantial part of the network's growth.
Through the 1980s, three episodes involving the program caused controversy. In 1982, Jornal Nacional's coverage of the state elections of Rio de Janeiro was accused of participating in a plot to fraud the elections. According to former Rede Globo employee Roméro da Costa Machado, Leonel Brizola, a candidate of the opposition to the military regime, was a politician historically persecuted by Rede Globo owner Roberto Marinho. Two years later, the program was accused of omitting information about the Diretas Já, a popular campaign for the end of the dictatorship. Finally, in 1989, Jornal Nacional was accused of editing a presidential debate between runoff candidates Fernando Collor and Luis Inacio Lula da Silva in order to favour Collor. This episode is also extensively debated on Beyond Citizen Kane.
In the 1990s, the quality of Rede Globo's journalism increased dramatically. Jornal Nacional presented its viewers breaking stories such as police brutality at favelas, an interview with Paulo César Farias when he was on the run from the law, corruption cases on the social security, among several others.
In recent days, after the death of Marinho, Rede Globo's journalism again declined in quality. Jornal Nacional has preferred to broadcast stories produced on the Southeast, in spite of Globo having affiliates in every Brazilian state. During the so-called Mensalão scandal and the 2006 general elections, Jornal Nacional was once again accused of airing anti-Lula biased news. Meanwhile, it lost great part of its viewership to Rede Record's Jornal da Record, which copied its style and also features former Jornal Nacional anchors, Celso Freitas and Marcos Hummel (as a relief presenter for Jornal da Record). On November 2005, host William Bonner caused controversy after he compared the average Jornal Nacional viewer with Homer Simpson, the ignorant main character of the American animated series The Simpsons.
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