"He is returning to the practice of putting up any critical data in the first paragraphs of a news": Juan Carlos Perez Salazar.
The BBC editor oriented theoretical-practical seminar for digital journalism students EAFIT in the second half of last year. One of the editors of BBC News, the premier English-language BBC London, will talk about this particular situation this Thursday at 10 am, in the auditorium of EAFIT 38-125. Invited by the undergraduate Social Communication, Juan Carlos Pérez Salazar analyze why most modern journalism is so much like today's was 100 years ago.
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What a paradox! Internet technology has revolutionized communications and information across the planet, which actually made the "global village" Marshall proclaimed McLuhan in the 60's, is leading to contemporary journalism have some of the typical forms you had during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
is as if the modern network, the most visible of the so-called "new technologies", he would return in time.
"There is a return to long holders, the inverted pyramid, the proliferation and disappearance constant media and, more alarmingly, to an attenuation, and in some cases near-disappearance of the border between opinion and information . All these were phenomena that were seen in the nineteenth century Anglo-Saxon period and, more specifically, the Industrial Revolution, "says Juan Carlos Perez Salazar.
This Colombian journalist, news editor of the prestigious BBC World BBC on its website, began to consider some assumptions about their work from this service for information, considered by many as the most credible internationally.
However, these ideas crystallized after hearing an interview with Timothy Garton-Ash, an English historian who became known for its coverage and analysis of so-called "velvet revolutions", those that occurred as an 'effect Dominos' to late 80 of XX century in the countries of Eastern Europe and which has as its symbol the stronger the fall of the Berlin Wall.
"In that interview," says Perez Salazar, "Garton-Ash said that what you see at the geopolitical level in the world today is a kind of return to the empires of the nineteenth century. According to him, today we are returning to a geopolitical empire. "
"Not only the United States since the end of the Cold War prevailed over a unipolar world, but the dramatic growth of China and regional powers like India, Russia and Brazil, who are actually beginning to act as the economic empires and even military in its sphere of influence. The peculiar thing is that this return is also given in journalism. " SPECIFIC CASES
For Juan Carlos Perez, the clearest example is this return to traditional forms of journalism for more than a century is in the headlines. "You may have noticed, he says that in the Internet news site owners are getting longer and explicit. Journalistically, this is a step back in time, as the trend was a short and impressive titles. "
explains that the reason is very simple: how 65% of Internet users use Google, and other tools for finding information an owner must have all the keywords so it can be easily located by the search.
The same applies to the return to the "inverted pyramid", which is that form of news writing in which the first paragraph the answer what happened, who participated in the news event, when it happened, where, how and why.
"The inverted pyramid began to emerge in response to the invention of the telegraph in 1840. Since it was so expensive transmitted by that system, the journalists began to write the gist of a story at first. Then they added detail. This began to be used intensively during the Civil War and was consolidated by news agencies write that way, most still do, for publishers to cut (or caparan, as we say in Colombia) what they want according to their possession space ".
However, in the second half of the twentieth century this form of writing began to come into disuse because they wanted an essay but boring, predictable and constrained. The print media went away from that corset so tight, without neglecting the journalistic rigor. "Well, now it is returning to the practice of putting up any critical data in the first paragraphs of a news" says Perez.
This is also due to a technological breakthrough: Many people are entering the news pages on the internet through cell phones, Blackberrys, iPads and Kindles. "And so by the time available for reading as the format of these devices, only read the first few paragraphs which, therefore, should concentrate all essential information," said the journalist.
OPINION AS IF THE INFORMATION
For EAFIT invited on Thursday, the most disturbing similarities between what is happening now and what happened in the nineteenth century is little separation between information and opinion within digital publications.
"All who studied journalism and communication remember when we were told that one of the great achievements of modern journalism was the separation between information and opinion."
"In the twentieth century, the media that stood out and were most influenced who made the impartiality and independence of their flag, as the New York Times, the BBC, the New Yorker or The Spectator here in Colombia. What I see in recent years is a return to the media to take sides and blur the boundary between information and opinion. "
The examples given by Juan Carlos Perez of this phenomenon range from Colombia to the United States, from major television networks to simple blogs of fans who just come to the digital world and published as outrageous all you see and think.
Still, he believes that in the future, despite all this proliferation of media, individual views, gossip, manipulation, "there will come a saturation point where the surfers will be sent to travel media and prestige, in which editors and journalists have to tell them: look, this is what it's worth! ".
And that, he believes, will become the foundation of modern journalism, that was decisive for much of the twentieth century to help consolidate democracy and to keep citizens well informed so they have criteria when making their decisions as social actors.
A journalism as we all call each day, based on information handled with responsibility, seriousness, credibility and sense of common good.
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