SUMMARY
Criteria of newsworthiness and news values of political journalism in Brazil were re-defined with the rise of legislative media, among other institutional outlets created in the 1990s. Journalism produced by these media brings information directly to the citizen, besides feeding journalistic outlets and companies. But it is questioned as a paternalistic practice of State, which appropriates journalistic techniques in order to influence public opinion. This article debates the informative impact of that model, which resulted in the creation of the so-called ?source media?, characterized by the offer of news ready to the public, avoiding that facts related to institutional action pass through the filters of private media. It concludes that a public communication system, although it is also a public service, should operate independently of the State, both from the bureaucratic point of view as from the production and broadcast of content.