Tim Lopes
November 18, 1950 – June 2, 2002
Photo Credit: PAULO ARAUJO; AFP
Tim Lopes was a Brazilian investigative journalist and producer for the Brazilian television network Rede Globo and specialised in undercover investigations, using a miniature camera and hidden microphone. Lopes and his family lived in one of Rio de Janeiro favela‘s. He came from a humble, unprivileged background. He lived surrounded by drug traffickers, but that did not stop him from becoming a journalist and the right person.
Tim Lopes attended journalism school at the Faculdade Hélio Alonso (FACHA) in Rio de Janeiro and during his career wrote for Rio newspapers such as O Globo, O Dia, and Jornal do Brasil. According to ‘‘Rice to Peace“, Lopes was an investigative journalist who preferred to do fieldwork on the street rather than sitting in an air-conditioned office. In pieces like the newspaper O Dia’s “Funk: Sound, Joy, and Terror,“ Lopes openly criticized the drug traffickers in Rio’s Favela. However, he also went after those he saw in the municipal government ceding control to the criminals.
In 1995, Lopes joined Rede Globo, Brazil’s largest broadcaster, and began a career in broadcast journalism. Lopes kept his focus on fieldwork, specifically on the impact of those who grew up in the favelas as he did. Within a year Lopes was a producer. For one report he dressed as a Santa Claus. For another he spent two months as a drug rehabilitation patient and in 2001 Lopes and his team were awarded for a report when he, using just a hidden camera, uncovered drug traffickers openly selling drugs in Rio de Janeiro‘s streets. During his career, Tim Lopes made many enemies in local favelas.
According to ‘‘Rice to Peace“, in June of 2002, Lopes left his middle-class apartment in Copacabana and stopped at the Rede Globo office. He continued to the Vila Cruzeiro favela to work on a piece about prostitution amongst minors. The local population had pleaded for Lopes to write such an expose. Lopes was filming when traffickers who had spotted his hidden camera approached and beat him. They kidnapped him and took him to the Morro do Alemao, another favela. There, he was tortured and condemned by a trafficker’s court. After being dismembered alive, Lopes was executed by being put inside car tires that were then set on fire.
Tim Lopes proved that even though he grew up surrounded by criminals, he started fighting against them and the government, which did not do anything about what was happening in local favelas. Lopes‘ name became even more famous after his death because of his efforts to make Brazil a safer place to live for all the people.
November 18, 1950 – June 2, 2002
Photo Credit: PAULO ARAUJO; AFP
Tim Lopes was a Brazilian investigative journalist and producer for the Brazilian television network Rede Globo and specialised in undercover investigations, using a miniature camera and hidden microphone. Lopes and his family lived in one of Rio de Janeiro favela‘s. He came from a humble, unprivileged background. He lived surrounded by drug traffickers, but that did not stop him from becoming a journalist and the right person.
Tim Lopes attended journalism school at the Faculdade Hélio Alonso (FACHA) in Rio de Janeiro and during his career wrote for Rio newspapers such as O Globo, O Dia, and Jornal do Brasil. According to ‘‘Rice to Peace“, Lopes was an investigative journalist who preferred to do fieldwork on the street rather than sitting in an air-conditioned office. In pieces like the newspaper O Dia’s “Funk: Sound, Joy, and Terror,“ Lopes openly criticized the drug traffickers in Rio’s Favela. However, he also went after those he saw in the municipal government ceding control to the criminals.
In 1995, Lopes joined Rede Globo, Brazil’s largest broadcaster, and began a career in broadcast journalism. Lopes kept his focus on fieldwork, specifically on the impact of those who grew up in the favelas as he did. Within a year Lopes was a producer. For one report he dressed as a Santa Claus. For another he spent two months as a drug rehabilitation patient and in 2001 Lopes and his team were awarded for a report when he, using just a hidden camera, uncovered drug traffickers openly selling drugs in Rio de Janeiro‘s streets. During his career, Tim Lopes made many enemies in local favelas.
According to ‘‘Rice to Peace“, in June of 2002, Lopes left his middle-class apartment in Copacabana and stopped at the Rede Globo office. He continued to the Vila Cruzeiro favela to work on a piece about prostitution amongst minors. The local population had pleaded for Lopes to write such an expose. Lopes was filming when traffickers who had spotted his hidden camera approached and beat him. They kidnapped him and took him to the Morro do Alemao, another favela. There, he was tortured and condemned by a trafficker’s court. After being dismembered alive, Lopes was executed by being put inside car tires that were then set on fire.
Tim Lopes proved that even though he grew up surrounded by criminals, he started fighting against them and the government, which did not do anything about what was happening in local favelas. Lopes‘ name became even more famous after his death because of his efforts to make Brazil a safer place to live for all the people.