Journalism

Journalists working in the 1940s.

Journalism is a professional activity that consists of obtaining, interpreting, processing and disseminating information and analysis, through the media such as the press, radio, television, the Internet, among others.

The main purpose of journalism is to give citizens accurate and timely information to assert their rights before society, in addition, it is mostly used by the media to transmit news, opinions or criticism that enrich the public.

The specialist in Information Sciences José Luis Dader points out that journalism, in addition to being a method to publicize events of relevance to a society, is also a science that combines the collection, verification, synthesis and clarification of information. information accredited as relevant and true, to selflessly serve citizens in their need for accurate monitoring of matters of public interest or potentially capable of affecting their lives.

Its classification as a discipline is highly debated, generally within the communication sciences, but in several countries it is attached to sociology and sometimes to political science within the branch of political communication proper to this last science Social.

Definition

Journalism can be defined according to its three main meanings:

• Activity whose purpose is to collect, synthesize, hierarchy and publish information concerning facts of the present, the past and/or the future. In this sense, journalism is understood as an appropriate methodology for presenting any kind of valuable information, seeking safe and verifiable sources.
• Profession that includes the collection of activities related to the collection, development and dissemination of current or relevant information to be transmitted to the public through the media, and in turn to convey knowledge satisfaction to the public.
• Set of studies or knowledge necessary to obtain an academic degree of journalist. Given the obvious influence of journalism in society, a professional deontology has been developed, consisting of a series of ethical norms and duties — journalistic ethics — that guide the activity. Such codes of ethics are generally issued by professional colleges in countries where they exist. These codes postulate the independence of the media from political and economic powers. The journalist is subject to his obligation to act as diligently as possible in accessing the sources and in contrasting confronted opinions.

History

This section is an excerpt from History of Journalism.[chuckles]edit]

Nixon leaving the White House shortly before his resignation became effective (9 August 1974) in the outcome of the Watergate Scandal, one of the milestones of investigative journalism.

Portada del primer número del diario Tandil Tidende, escrito en danés en la ciudad de Tandil, Argentina. July 8, 1880 edition.

The history of journalism is the development, throughout history, of journalism, understood as a regular and continuous activity of collecting, preparing and disseminating news about the main events that occur in the world, carried out by journalists. The trend has been the increase in the number of news available to citizens and the speed of transmission. Since the end of the 17th century the newspapers have been the main means of disseminating the activity of journalists, to which during that time the magazines were added, in the 20th century radio and television, and in the 21st century Internet.

After a comparative study, Guillamet concludes that there is a consensus to define the stages of the history of journalism; the old or artisan (1609-1789), the modern or liberal (1789-last quarter of the nineteenth century), the contemporary or industrial (the last quarter of the nineteenth-century quarter of the twentieth century) and that which derives from the emergence of the Internet in 1994. Italy, Germany, France, England, Spain and the United States are the key countries for academic approach to the history of journalism.

Journalism has spread thanks to the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialized techniques to collect and disseminate information that has caused the steady increase in the scope of available news and the speed with which they are transmitted.

French printing house of the early 16th century

As antecedents of journalism, we can consider the handwritten information that circulated in the European Courts. In England Edward III and Henry VI had news editors who provided them with valuable information in times of war. While in Germany and Italy commercial and even artistic interest in certain news sheets called avvisi became common. The writers obtained information from navigators, merchants, and troops, and then sold the reports to feudal lords, big businessmen, and military commanders, among others.

The invention of the modern printing press, in the mid-15th century, made possible the emergence of the newspaper, as a publication with intervals fixed. The first newspapers were presented every six months in the city of Cologne, in Germany; while it was Emperor Rudolf II who had the initiative to promote a monthly publication, in 1597, for which he formed a group with the most important publishers of the time.

Genres

The basis of journalism is the news, although it includes other genres, many of which are interrelated, such as the interview, the report, the chronicle, the documentary, the profile and the opinion.^{[citation required]}

Álex Grijelmo, director of the School of Journalism of El País, an obligatory benchmark of journalism in Spanish, makes a differentiation of journalistic genres, in his book The journalist's style:

Journalistic genres [...] are fundamentally differentiated by the different degree of presence of the informant in his text. Thus, in the news hardly appears who has written it; we only guess that he has an author because in it, logically, an election of reality, so that his editor chooses those elements that seem interesting to him (and that already implies a personal judgment) But we do not know his opinion about the facts he narrates. On the opposite side, the article, the free rostrum or the editorial imply an omnit presence of those who write, which shows their own opinions—or those of the publishing company—in a very subjective way.

While Grijelmo only distinguishes two major journalistic genres, from them we can make subdivisions of them, like the following one that contains three major journalistic genres:

• Informational genres. In general, they disseminate novel events or events considered of general interest. The informative genre par excellence is the news. Also, in its widest form, the report.
• genders of opinion. They interpret, analyze and value relevant issues with the intention of conveying a certain point of view on the subject. They are opinion genres: the editorial, letters to the director, opinion articles and columns.
• mixed or hybrid genres. They combine information and opinion. Among them are the interview, the chronicle and the critique, besides tending to the development of the infotenimiento.

Literature and education teacher and researcher Ana Atorresi classifies genres into news, opinion and entertainment, considering comic drawings and comics, games and entertainment, and literature among the latter.

Classification

Journalism can be classified according to two main criteria: the means of communication it uses and the type of information it analyzes.

Depending on the transmission medium

The information can be disseminated by means or technical supports, which gives rise to graphic journalism, the written press, radio journalism, audiovisual (through film and television) and digital or multimedia journalism.

• Graphic journalism: the one who uses photography as a medium.
• Written journalism: It's the one that appears in the newspapers and magazines.
• Radiophonic journalism: uses radio.
• Audiovisual journalism: it is the one who uses television to transmit the information.
• Digital journalism or cyber journalism: uses the web.

Depending on the type of information

• Agricultural journalism. It is dedicated to reporting on the current situation related to the primary sector, the food industry and its distribution, covering such topics as agriculture, livestock, fisheries, prices and markets, food, consumption and health, agricultural biotechnology, food and rural enterprises in general. It applies to a very heterogeneous field between the terms "agro" and "food" that infuses a special complexity.
• Environmental journalism. It deals with current and information related to the environment, nature and sustainable development, especially with the deterioration of the natural environment (soils, atmosphere, biodiversity).
• Scientific journalism. It aims to communicate, disseminate and disseminate scientific knowledge in society.
• Citizen journalism or 2.0. In the centuryXXIIt was American Dan Gillmor who coined the name journalism citizen or journalism 2.0 online, via the YouTube platform. In citizen journalism, citizens themselves collect, analyse and disseminate information independently.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Cultural journalism. It is the branch of the journalistic office aimed at covering all manifestations of the broad concept that covers the term culture on the day to day of a society.^{[chuckles]required]}
• War journalism. It covers the news that occurs during a war conflict, which means that journalists sent to carry out such a mission have to put their lives or physical integrity at serious risk. Many reporters have lost their lives in carrying out this work.
• Research journalism. It seeks to reveal facts of public interest through journalistic research that deepen in those facts that affect the common good, for which it is necessary to collect data, perform interviews, contrast sources and have reliable backgrounds and documents that allow to denounce or publish a report, as well as the rest of the journalism.^{[chuckles]required]}. That is, research journalism has concrete objectives that break with the essence of pure daily information. Research journalism aims to expose injustices, expose frauds, seek solutions, make known what power wants to hide, demonstrate the functioning of public bodies, reveal corruption.
• Data journalism. It is dedicated to finding topics of public interest through databases of different public and private bodies. It allows to contrast and strengthen information through the use of computer programs or digital platforms for public use. It is strongly linked to research journalism and digital journalism.
• Proposition journalism. It emerges in 2000 through a project created by Guillermo Molina Villarroel, in order to correct and change the intentions when communicating, due to the routine proposals of the 1980s and 1990s of civic and service journalism. According to this type of journalism, the journalist must understand that his service is not only to report, but that his ethics should encourage him to seek, change and give his free opinion, so be it unconformity.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Heart journalism. He is dedicated to informing about the lives of celebrities and the lamp.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Declarative journalism. It is based on reproducing statements from public figures or citizens both to complete news, but also statements become news.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Sports journalism. It is the one that collects information about local, national or international sports events; it shows the novelties related to different sports disciplines. He intends to be in the facts and analyze the performance of the athletes.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Economic journalism. It is the branch of journalism focused on reporting on facts related to the economy, including issues about finance, banking or the stock market.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Hyperlocal journalism. This mode of journalism is born mainly from the citizen initiative to provide information close to its immediate geographical context.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Infographic journalism. It is the one that merges visual and textual elements. It is a specialty of great explanatory potential that began with the realization of maps and graphics.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Literary journalism. An important promoter of this kind of journalism, in Latin America, was the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez (the Nobel Prize in Literature 1982). Journalism should have a narrative richness capable of breaking up literature, but without departing from the simplicity and precision of the journalistic style.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Political journalism. It refers to analysis and information regarding policy-related activities (both national and international), Parliament, political parties and all components of formal power in society.
• Mobile journalism. From English mobile journalism, refers to the use of mobile devices and the publication of journalistic contents on these devices. Thanks to digital convergence, print or audio-visual media do not have the exclusiveness of information, but the so-called cybermedia are a new channel for the journalist to develop his professional activity.
• Preventive journalism. It intends to analyse crises and conflicts from an integral point of view, from their origins to their outbreak and subsequent repercussions.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Satellite journalism. It is the one who uses satire, in tone of humor, to refer to news facts. On other occasions, he presents fictional facts as news, always giving keys to identifying them as fictional texts whose objective is to demonstrate a reality through exaggeration, absurdity or parody. Its intention is not to report, but to criticize or make indirect complaints. In this type of journalism, in Spain, they include characters like José Miguel Monzón (known as "The Great Wyoming").^{[chuckles]required]}
• Social journalism. The articulation of the social axis is proposed with the themes of politics and the economy on the media agenda.^{[chuckles]required]}
• Tourist journalism. This branch of journalism tends to report on the actions related to the superstructures, the plant and the tourist infrastructure, about the happening in the different destinations and on the reality of tourists, local populations, governments and companies. It is often believed that it spreads or promotes, when none of these activities actually corresponds to journalistic activity, but rather to advertising or marketing. Tourism journalism informs about the present day of tourism, interpreting the events that happen around the displacement of people and in relation to the sociopolitical and multidisciplinary context of which it is a part. This type of journalism should not be confused with public relations, as an advertising tool or literary genre.
• Group journalism. It is the one that takes place in a group, prioritizing the stability of information disseminated to immediacy.

Social influence

Journalism is considered by some authors as the "fourth estate" of the great Western democracies (the first three are those established by modern constitutions: executive, legislative and judicial power). As a counterpart, journalism, in some cases is a profession with risks; many journalists have met their deaths in the exercise of their profession.

Journalism created, due to its needs for quick reading and comprehension and its claim to neutrality, a writing style that has nurtured numerous writers, who were part of its staff and stood out in its columns. It has also created prestigious and serious commentators on social and political life, dressed its pages with good humorists and cartoonists; has developed from the costumbrista project to the given investigation.

The journalistic profile

It is a journalistic genre that consists of reporting experiences, characteristics and curious data of a particular character, be it people, animated beings and also discouraged beings using the atmosphere. It comes close many times to the interview, the biography and the chronicle of the character. Profiling implies a value judgment by highlighting specific aspects or activities of a person. The father of profiling is Jon Lee Anderson, who has profiled writers, artists, and politicians among others.

The journalistic profile needs in-depth research, which is why it falls within the genres of new journalism or narrative journalism. The purpose of the profile is to reflect reality in a different way where there is narration, dialogue and description. It avoids reaching a biography or becoming an interview (question-answer). Unlike these, the profile not only includes the voice of the character but also the voices of friends, family members, even enemies. In his writing the five senses are applied, delving into the physical and psychological details from observation, the description of his wardrobe, what he projects (tranquility, nervousness, happiness, harmony, among others), the aroma of the place where he is, flavors and sensations. In addition, it is expected that through the dialogue the character will reveal his fears, his tastes, his passions, his sadness, his adventures and above all to be able to find one or more important data worthy of publication.

The profile complies with the structure of any story: beginning, middle and end. Themes can be historical, social, political and cultural. According to Jon Lee Anderson, to write a profile you must discover the ability to feel what is around you.

The work carried out by Berganza, Lavín and Piñeiro-Naval determined a typology of six professional journalism roles through a survey of 390 Spanish journalists. The roles identified were:

The highest percentage of journalists identify with the role "Speaker for the citizenry", and the lowest percentage of them with the role "Favourer of the status quo& #34;.But this is all you need to know about a journalistic profile.

Situation of journalists in the world

In democratic countries, journalistic work is usually protected by law or by the constitution. This often includes the journalist's right to keep the identity of his sources secret, even when he is questioned in court.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes standards for freedom of expression and of the press. In addition to the legal norms that regulate the profession of journalists, they maintain an ethical commitment to society that is specified in the so-called professional journalistic deontology. It is a series of rules contained in codes of ethics that each company or association draws up according to its own criteria.

The objective of the Investigative Commission of Attacks on Journalists of Felap is to investigate, monitor and denounce crimes against journalists in Latin America. In this work, the executive secretary of this Commission is the Chilean journalist Ernesto Carmona. In his 2012 report, he provided the records of 45 murdered journalists.

In addition, according to the organization Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières), in 2006 at least 81 journalists died in the exercise of their work or for expressing their opinions in twenty-one countries. You have to go back to 1994 to find a higher figure. That year, 103 journalists died, of whom almost half died in the Rwandan genocide, about twenty in Algeria, victims of the civil war, and a dozen in the former Yugoslavia. They also highlight that 32 collaborators died, at least 871 journalists were detained, 1,472 assaulted or threatened, 56 kidnapped, and 912 media outlets were censored.

In the inter-American context, the Inter-American Court has produced jurisprudence on journalistic activity and freedom of expression (Organization of American States). Various academic investigations have shown how in many Latin American countries the autonomy of journalistic professionals journalism is affected by the contexts of violence and corruption, as is the case of Colombia.

Spain

In Spain, regulated training in journalism is offered through bachelor's and master's degrees. The objective of the Degree in Journalism is to provide basic and general training in journalistic work, while the different university master's degrees focus on a specific type of journalism as well as its research.

University degrees in journalism are not qualifying, since in Spain journalism is still an unregulated profession. However, holding an official journalism degree is a necessary requirement to be part of any of the professional associations of journalists.

In Spain, the deontological code prepared by the Federation of Associations of Spanish Journalists (FAPE) applies to the professionals integrated in this group.

Mexico

Venezuelan

An event that marked the beginning of journalism in Venezuela was the appearance of the first printed newspaper "La Gazeta de Caracas" in the year 1808. At that time, newspapers used a literary style and the journalist or editor described the events, using opinion journalism techniques. It should be noted that this means of communication was intended for the upper class of the country, since there was a high level of illiteracy in the bulk of the population in general.

Two years later (1810), Francisco de Miranda would become the first Venezuelan to work as a journalist by publishing in London, in the company of the Ecuadorian José de Antepara, the fortnightly page "El Colombiano". This medium circulated in America, propagating ideas of emancipation, influencing important figures such as Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín, among others.

Later, the written press would take an important step with the founding of "El Correo del Orinoco" in 1818, by the hand of Simón Bolívar. This medium would serve Bolívar to spread his libertarian ideas in America.

On August 20, 1840, Antonio Leocadio Guzmán founded the first popular and opinion newspaper "El Venezolano". In this way, the beginning of the popular press in Venezuela is marked, since until then the press was intended for the upper class of the country, far from a largely illiterate people.

The press suffered a severe blow during the government periods of Juan Vicente Gómez (1908-1935) and Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1953-1958).

However, the worst crisis in the press and journalism would occur after 1999 with the arrival of Hugo Chávez to power; with the closure of the media, detention of journalists, deficit of foreign currency to import paper and other inputs, in addition to the impediments to renew concessions.

Professional practice is governed by the Journalist's Code of Ethics in Venezuela. The main universities where journalists are trained in Venezuela are: Central University of Venezuela (UCV); Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB); University of Zulia (LUZ) and University of Los Andes (ULA).

Argentina

There are two antecedents: prior to the birth of the country, the Commercial, Rural, Political, Economic and Historiographical Telegraph of the Río de la Plata, founded in 1801 at the request of Manuel Belgrano. After the liberation of May 25, 1810, the Gazeta de Buenos Ayres, with the aim of publicizing the government acts of the First Board, written by Mariano Moreno with Manuel Alberti and collaborations by Belgrano and Juan José Castelli. El Telégrafo Mercantil appeared for the first time on April 1, 1801, under the direction of Antonio Cabello y Mesa, considered the first journalist from Buenos Aires.