JUNE 2025 – Of the many sad developments surrounding the shrinking news business, nothing stands out quite so much as the death of overseas coverage. And in places other than London and Paris, especially. On-site news coverage of far-off places has a way of informing us of not simply other cultures – but of ourselves. And there’s no better example than his June 6 report on The Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/06/07/brazil-comedian-leo-lins-free-speech/
Indeed, it’s heartening that Terrence McCoy and Marina Diaz, reporters for the Washington Post, still hold down a fort in Brazil. Their piece on Brazilian comedian Leo Lins getting sentenced to 8 years in jail for telling bigoted jokes echoes back to the US. Free and tolerant societies – and multi-ethnic, multi-tribal societies like ours – are constantly tested and re-tested on what’s free speech, what’s permissible free speech, and who’s deciding all that. Sure, free speech is under assault from Trump and other intimidating politicians, but it’s also challenged in culture, in art and expression, here and there. These two reporters do a job of articulating the issue, and putting it in context for both America and for Brazil, and without repeating any of the offensive jokes.
Even in a country that has long defined freedom of speech more narrowly than other places, Lins’s conviction has been met with significant pushback. Voices across Brazilian society, including columnists, free-speech advocates, conservative politicians and progressive comedians, have united to condemn the ruling as an unjust infringement on civil liberties.