The ‘Base School’ case turns 30; remember the fake news that has affected the country

30 years ago, on March 28, 1994, a report was broadcast that denounced alleged sexual abuse against children in Basic School, a school in the central region of São Paulo. This article forever changed the lives of the owners of the institution and became known as one of the biggest mistakes in the history of Brazilian journalism.

The charges against the school owners were made unfairly. Icushiro Shimada AND Maria Aparecida Shimadain addition to the teacher Paolo Milhim and the driver Maurizio Alvarenga have been accused of sexually abusing students and children as young as four. The indictment even said that during school hours they took the children to motels, where they photographed and filmed them naked.

The mothers called the police, who searched the school and home of one of the children mentioned in the complaint, but nothing was found. Without evidence, they went to Globe with history. At the time the main newspapers, radios and televisions reported the news and began accusing the owners of pedophilia. They had to hide and the school was vandalised.

Subsequent investigations showed that it was all a lie and that none of the accused were involved in cases of sexual abuse or pedophilia.

Consequences of the Escola Base scandal

Icushiro and Maria Aparecida had to close the school and move from São Paulo in order to live in peace. They never returned to work in education. After the scandal, newspapers reported the owners’ innocence, highlighting the lack of evidence circulating about the accusations and how the accusations negatively affected everyone’s lives.

Valmir Salaro, former Globo journalist and reporter of the first article on the topic, released a documentary in 2022 about the coverage of the incident. “Escola Base – A reporter faces the past” explains the flaws in the news and analyzes the facts. Valmir said in an interview with Fantastic that the documentary is important to make known the mistakes made at that time.

“Most journalists who covered the case never wanted to talk about the mistake. People, of course, prefer to talk about their successes and the great things they have achieved. I’m not. I think it is important to talk about the Escola Base mistake in all aspects to alert not only colleagues, but also new journalists“he said finally.

Ricardo Shimada, son of the wrongly accused couple, published a book in 2023 to talk about the topic. In “The son of injustice“, he recounted what it was like to live that moment and see his family life changed forever by a false accusation.

* Under the supervision of Lilian Coelho