Tim Lopes - Aftermath

Aftermath

Though a prominent journalist, Tim Lopes only became nationally known after his death in a crime that shocked the country. The television program Jornal Nacional pursued the story, which increased the pressure on the authorities to capture the criminals involved; and O Globo newspaper and TV began using the term poder paralelo (parallel power) to describe the paradigm of that time of criminal gangs controlling certain favelas within Rio with impunity.

Rio journalist Jorge Antonio Barros, who has been writing about Rio's favelas and the crime beat since the 1980s, and was a colleague of Lopes at Globo wrote that Tim’s death served to snap him out of the dream state, to which people sometimes fall prey, of romanticizing “the malandro;” and that his death reminded people who don’t have to live in favelas under the “law of the trafficker” of the terror that exists as a daily reality.

Another colleague of Lopes at Globo was journalist César Seabra, who wrote: “The death of Tim Lopes opened our eyes to a new reality. Now our dilemma is to figure out how to report stories from the areas controlled by drug dealers.” Seabra wrote in response to Lopes' death, that the culture of crime reporting at that time needed to change: “We’re tired of giving the criminals the front page. We’re tired of interviewing the criminal on T.V. We’re tired of empowering the criminal in order to get an exclusive.”

“The reflections about journalism generated by Lopes' killing led to the creation of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji in Portuguese) in December of that year”.

Tim Lopes was honored in a São Paulo carnaval (carnival) procession in 2003 by the samba school, Acadêmicos do Tucuruvi with the theme "Do not shut my voice," a tribute to a free press, with lyrics such as, "the truth Tim-Tim by Tim-Tim," in reference to his nickname.

A street has since been named after Tim Lopes in Rio’s west suburb of Barra da Tijuca. It is called Avenida Tim Lopes. The change was lobbied by the Sindicato dos Jornalistas Profissionais do Município do Rio (Union of Professional Journalists of the City of Rio).

When a new public high school was built in the Complexo do Alemão, it was named Colégio Tim Lopes. From time to time, on the anniversary of Lopes' death, students have artistic performances, and other expressions to memorialize Lopes.