M. Nascimento Brito, 80; Led Brazilian Paper in Defying Censorship

Manoel Francisco do Nascimento Brito, 80, who fought censorship by Brazil’s military regime during his half-century at the helm of one of the nation’s leading newspapers, died Saturday in his native Rio de Janeiro of complications from a stroke he suffered Jan. 20.

Nascimento Brito trained in the U.S. as a pilot in Brazil’s air force during World War II, and studied law after the war. But his career was determined by his marriage to Leda Marina, stepdaughter of Count Ernesto Pereira Carneiro, who owned the newspaper Jornal do Brasil. After the count’s death in 1954, Nascimento Brito became the newspaper’s executive director, a position he held until 2000.

He was credited with implementing technical and editorial improvements, and for setting the country’s highest journalistic standards in the 1960s and ‘70s, when he steered Jornal do Brasil through the 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

He held the newspaper to an independent political line, despite severe restrictions of censorship and persistent persecution of political opponents.