Media : Brazilian Press Fans the Flames Threatening to Engulf President : No longer subdued, the Fourth Estate leads the call for scandal-plagued Collor’s impeachment.

At a recent social gathering, President Fernando Collor de Mello let go with some especially bitter comments about Brazil’s press, which has played a decisive role in the campaign for his impeachment. Though the press was not invited to the party, the gist of Collor’s remarks appeared in the next day’s newspapers, barnyard words and all.

“I’m sorry to be suffering the aggressions of that . . . brown press, which fills our homes with mud,” the Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Globo quoted the president as saying.

He got even more colorful after that.

It’s no wonder that Collor is upset with some of the country’s leading magazines and newspapers. For the last four months, an unrelenting hurricane of banner headlines and cover stories has made the “Collorgate” scandal a president’s nightmare.

Whether or not the lower house of Congress impeaches Collor this week on corruption charges, as his opponents predict it will, Collorgate already is inscribed as a momentous chapter in the annals of Latin American news media.

As in the Watergate scandal during President Richard M. Nixon’s term, the press has brought a president to the brink of impeachment. This is all the more remarkable because the Brazilian media were subdued and often self-censored under military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985.

“The Fourth Estate has come into its own,” said Steven J. Popovics, owner of a Sao Paulo commodities brokerage. “It’s the only real force for democratic change in Brazil.”

Richard Foster, who watches the Brazilian press closely as editor of an executive newsletter named Brazil Watch, said a few major publications have led the charge in Collorgate, fanning the flames that now threaten to engulf the president.

“There is no way in the world that it would have happened without the press,” Foster said.

The seeds of the scandal were planted by the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo just days after Collor took office in March, 1990. He had campaigned on a clean-government platform. Yet, Folha found that his first government contracts for advertising were awarded without bidding under questionable circumstances.

Collor sued the paper for libel and sent tax inspectors to audit its books. But Folha did not relent. Instead, the newspaper engaged its best reporters, including Gilberto Dimenstein and Clovis Rossi, in an investigative campaign against the administration.

“Those two guys were doggedly, daily, looking for anything that made Collor look bad,” Foster said. Some media critics thought Folha had lost its objectivity.

But late in May, Veja newsmagazine published an interview with Pedro Collor, the president’s brother. “Pedro Collor Tells All,” said the cover headline. Pedro accused Paulo Cesar Farias, Fernando Collor’s former campaign manager, of extorting millions of dollars in bribes from companies doing government business and passing along percentages to the president.

Although Folha had earlier published allegations of influence-peddling by Farias, the allegations had far greater impact when made by Collor’s own brother. Other publications interviewed Pedro and started investigations. And the lower house of Congress, spurred by the media attention, formed a special investigative committee to look into Farias’ dealings.

Many congressional investigations have fizzled and died in Brazil. But the press kept public attention on this one. Cooperative members of the committee leaked tidbits of information to newspapers and magazines, which also pursued their own investigations.

Still, some observers doubted early on that the scandal posed much of a threat to Collor because there was no solid proof of any connection between him and Farias’ graft--until the magazine IstoE came up with another bombshell interview. A chauffeur who worked for Collor’s secretary told the magazine that he, the chauffeur, had picked up money from one of Farias’ companies and that sometimes the money was used to pay Collor’s private household expenses.

More big-headline evidence followed, both in leaks from the committee and information dug up by the press.

In the highly competitive race for news, unproven and exaggerated allegations also found their way into print. “The Government Offers $1 Billion Against Impeachment,” said a far-fetched Folha headline above reports that Collor hoped to buy anti-impeachment votes in Congress.

Generally, however, newspapers appeared to be looking for facts more than grinding an ax.

“There is no record in the entire history of Brazil of so many newspapers and journalists going after evidence, using the strictest standards of independent journalism,” wrote Folha’s Dimenstein in the foreword of a new book on Collorgate.

Although belatedly, Brazilian television also began giving the scandal big play, further building momentum for impeachment. All the publicity has helped generate giant street demonstrations against Collor, and the protests have reinforced pro-impeachment forces in Congress.

Ironically, Collor himself has a journalism degree, and his family owns a newspaper and a television station in its home state of Alagoas. The family paper, Gazeta de Alagoas, has been notably immune from the media excitement over Collorgate.

During a recent week at the height of the scandal, the Gazeta published no Collorgate news on the front page, and the few small stories it buried on inside pages gave no hint of any presidential involvement.

Special correspondent Jeb Blount contributed to this story.