Television presenter and businessman Silvio Santos, who died in the early hours of Saturday (17), in São Paulo, was responsible for innovations in Brazilian journalism. A member of the Rio de Janeiro Journalists’ Union since the 1950s, he helped create the first news program in the country with an anchor – a journalist who, in addition to presenting the news, comments on and analyzes the news. 
“He helped us create the first anchored news program. He helped us create the first news program presented by an anchor in Brazil, which was Telejornal Brasil, TJ Brasil, with Boris Casoy,” says the journalist from Brazilian Communications Company (EBC)Albino Castro, who worked with Silvio Santos at SBT for 12 years.
Albino recalls that the presenter and businessman also participated in the creation of the first news program with a woman as anchor, journalist Lillian Witte Fibe, on Jornal do SBT, and the police program Aqui Agora.
“Aqui Agora was a journalistic product he created and we ran it with his help and guidance. Silvio Santos was a journalist, a union member in Rio since 1954, and he had a very interesting journalistic vision, because it was a vision mixed with a showmanship. He also conceived of journalism as something spectacular, extraordinary,” Albino highlights.
Innovation
He also recalls that the presenter even changed the way the newscast was put together, based on printed newspapers, divided into sections or editorials.
“He said that we wrote a script very similar to the printed newspaper. [Ele dizia que] You can mix all the news, like the front page of the newspaper, you don’t need to do the sports section, the international section, the economics section. And then you see that it is something that was implemented by us at SBT and that later gained space in all the stations. And today, Jornal Nacional and all the other newspapers are done like this”, he emphasizes.
The TV presenter and businessman died at 4:50 am this Saturday, in the capital of São Paulo, due to bronchopneumonia after an infection with Influenza (H1N1). He was hospitalized at the Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein. Silvio Santos leaves behind his wife Íris, two daughters from his first marriage and four daughters from his second marriage, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
