A prévia incriminação midiática televisiva e os danos para os suspeitos.

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the impacts of pre-incrimination by television media on criminal suspects, highlighting the legal, social, and psychological consequences generated by premature and sensationalist exposures before a final sentence is issued. To this end, the case study is the 1994 episode at the Escola Base de São Paulo school, in which the school's owners were wrongly accused of child sexual abuse, with their names and images widely publicized by the press before the investigation was concluded. The research seeks to demonstrate how the television media's actions, by prioritizing sensationalism over fact-finding, compromise fundamental rights such as the presumption of innocence and human dignity. Through an applied qualitative approach, utilizing exploratory, descriptive, and explanatory objectives, the scientific research method used was hypothetical-deductive. This paper proposes a critical reflection on the ethical and legal limits of journalistic coverage in criminal cases. The findings allow us to critically reflect on the ethical and legal limits of journalistic coverage in criminal cases, proposing strategies to mitigate the harm resulting from pre-trial media judgment.