Criteria of newsworthiness and news values of political journalism in Brazil were re-defined with the rise of legislative media, besides other institutional outlets established in the 1990s. Journalism produced by these media brings information directly to the citizen, and feeds media outlets and news corporations. But this new kind of journalism is criticized as being a paternalistic practice of the State, which appropriates journalistic techniques in order to influence public opinion. This paper discusses the news impact of that model, which led to the establishment of the so-called “source media”. This media offer ready-made new bulletins, preventing news items on institutional action from passing through the filters of private media. It concludes that a public communication system, even ir it is a public service, should operate independently from the State, both from a bureaucratic point of view as in terms of content production and dissemination.Keywords: Legislative; political information; newsworthiness; news values; civic journalism; public journalism.