Gov. Pat Quinn isn't big news yet in Brazil

Gov. Pat Quinn meets with business leaders in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in a photo distributed by his press office.

SPRINGFIELD-Gov. Pat Quinn is nearing the halfway point of his Brazilian trade mission, which he is marking both by a handful of tweets and a flurry of press releases from his office.

But his trip has not yet become big news to the local press in South America’s largest country.

The only reference found online in Sao Paulo’s daily, Folha de S. Paulo, to Quinn’s trip was a two-paragraph mention Sunday about his arrival and planned donation of seven scholarships for the Science Without Borders program, a government-run exchange program that sends Brazilian students abroad.

“During the visit to Brazil of the governor of Illinois (USA), Pat Quinn, who arrives today with 40 entrepreneurs, U.S. companies will announce the donation of seven scholarships for the Science Without Borders program of the federal government,” the newspaper reported.

“The state grants total $155,000 (about 313,000). Only Motorola Solutions Foundation, philanthropic arm of [the] cellular company, will donate two, U.S. $ 25 000 (about 50,000) each,” the report concluded.

The newspaper has run several earlier, Illinois-specific wire stories involving Quinn since he has been governor, including a ceremony he attended at Millenium Park that marked the first civil unions in Illinois and his signing of death-penalty legislation.

Meanwhile, Quinn used his Twitter account twice, along with several retweets, to give the folks back home a taste of what he’s doing.

Tuesday’s dispatch, which included a photo, was this: “@GovernorQuinn Mtg w/ Federation of Industries of the State of So Paulo, which represents more than 130 Brazilian biz groups.”