Gene Policinski: Blame it on Rio for the future of journalism

  RIO DE JANEIRO — If you want to see the future of journalism and the benefits of a free press, at least some of it can be seen in parts of this huge South American nation.

  More precisely, look in the coastal city of Salvador in a small, multistory building on a steep and narrow street in a modest area of town just above the cargo docks that is home to the Ethnic Media Institute.

  Look and learn from community journalist Thais Cavalcante, who publishes her own newspaper and lives in Rio in a favela — a slum where the poorest of the poor lives — that’s both a short distance and yet a world away from the sunny, shiny beaches of Copacabana.