JOURNALISTIC GENRES: CHARACTERISTICS, STRUCTURE - LITERATURE - 2025

The journalistic genres are those forms of linguistic creation whose main feature adapting its structure to the dissemination of news and opinions. This diffusion is done through the media of social communication. The transmitted content involves both the news itself and its value judgment.

Now, the concept of journalistic genres was used for the first time in 1952 by the French journalist Jacques Kayser. The initial intention of the coinage of this definition was the development of a quantitative method to make sociological analyzes of the messages of the newspapers.

Later, it was outlined as a doctrine of sociolinguistics to make critical evaluations of a literary and linguistic nature of the published news. Likewise, the theory of journalistic genres was later adopted as a method for the pedagogical organization of university studies on journalism.

On the other hand, journalistic genres have evolved at the pace of humanity and its need for information. In its first stage (until the First World War) it was a purely informative journalism). Then, interpretive journalism followed (until the middle of 1940). In recent times, opinion journalism predominates.

Journalistic genres are important in the development of the journalistic function. On the one hand, they allow the journalist to fulfill the functions entrusted by society to the press. These functions have to do with meeting the population's needs for information, education, culture and entertainment.

Likewise, they allow the interactions between the press and its readers to be diverse thanks to the multiplicity of channels available to access journalistic material. In the same way, they allow the differentiation of communicational elements (the constituent elements of information from those of opinion, for example).

General characteristics

Simplicity

When it comes to journalistic genres, simplicity means writing in words that are easy for readers to understand. However, this feature complements the precision.

The latter assumes that the words used in addition to being known are exact; that is, they are the ones indicated to obtain a coherent text.

Conciseness

Conciseness is the opposite characteristic of redundancy, verbiage, and expressive hesitation. This characteristic of journalistic genres forces specialists from the various branches to strive so that their texts reach all sectors clearly.

Structurally consistent paragraphs

Journalistic genres are characterized by having structurally coherent paragraphs. These should be made up of sentences that are stitched together in an orderly manner. Thus, one paragraph is connected to the next to consistently express ideas, statements or judgments.

Within the same paragraph, the initial idea of ​​a sentence is connected to the final idea of ​​the preceding sentence or to the dominant general idea. In this way, the central idea of ​​the writing is clearly demarcated and developed.

Sender-receiver news

In general, journalistic genres refer to immediate, close problems and in the same time dimension of both the sender and the receiver.

Otherwise they would cease to be journalistic, since the receiver of the information requires in relation to phenomena, events and characters that these belong to their current situation.

Topics of social interest

Another of the general characteristics of journalistic genres is the fact that they refer thematically to issues, phenomena, events, works or characters of social interest.

Structure

In general, there is no single structure to elaborate journalistic genres. There is only a general referential structure that journalists follow for the production of their work. This referential structure follows a methodology of decreasing order of tension.

According to this scheme, the most important thing is written in the first paragraph. Then the data of less interest are placed. This structure is known among specialists as an inverted pyramid and consists of two elements: entrance and body.

Entry or lead

The entry corresponds to the first paragraph of the genre. This is where the core information for the job is located. It is not written as an introduction nor does it have its functions under any point of view.

On the contrary, it brings together the most important elements of the writing and forms an element designed to arouse the reader's curiosity about the topic being addressed.

In this sense, this entry paragraph should contain all the relevant information, answering the questions what, who, when, where, how and why.

These configure the style of journalists, since through the order in which they are answered, the approach that the journalist makes to the subject is established.

For a long time this form was used by journalists worldwide. However, today this trend has fallen into disuse due to the development of genres and the introduction of technical advances in writing and dissemination.

Currently it is common to find that only two or three questions are answered in the first paragraph and the rest are left for later paragraphs. Usually, those that focus the thematic interest of the readers are answered first.

As a consequence of this, the success of an entry depends largely on the ability of the journalist to find which is the question that generates the most interest from readers.

Body

According to the current format, the substantial part of the journalistic work is located in the body. In this section you will find the causes, consequences and analysis of the facts. In this way, the public gets a deeper insight into them and can form their own opinion of what happened.

This part contains the explanatory data in which the complementary aspects of the central fact are related. Generally, these are data can be omitted without prejudice to the rest of the data exposed in the other sections.

Main journalistic genres

Informative journalistic genres

They are those genres that offer details about current events or information about characters that are news. Some of this kind of journalistic genres will be explained below.

News

The news is a journalistic production that deals with reviews of news events. For its realization, it requires an event that is noteworthy.

One of the fundamental features that characterizes this informative genre is the actuality that forces the fact to be reported to be of recent occurrence, announcement or discovery.

In addition, another of its peculiarities is the novelty. This implies that the news must be of an unknown or little known event until that moment.

It must also meet the requirement of truthfulness or adherence to reality. Periodicity is another of its most common features: the information is presented to the public with a fixed interval in time.

On the other hand, the news must respond to the needs and expectations of the reading public. Other specialists assign other additional characteristics to the news. According to these, the news must be timely, unsystematic (isolated events without connection to each other) and perishable (they disappear when they lose relevance).

Informative reports

The informative report develops the news event including information on the description of the context and the statements of people linked to the event.

This genre approaches the news from a descriptive-objective perspective. The personal evaluations or opinions of the editor are excluded.

Depending on the topic, the format and the treatment of the information, reports can be distinguished with thematic blocks and with a counterpoint or dialectical structure. Likewise, you can find reports with a chronological structure and with a structure by scenes or cases.

Interviews

The interview is defined as a conversation in which answers are sought to topics of public interest. In an interview, a person who asks the questions (the interviewer) and others who answer (interviewees) participate. The answers reflect only the position of the interviewee in relation to the matter being asked.

In addition, an interview may consist of the approximate reproduction of the words of the informative sources.

The predominant characteristic of this type of genre is that these are the ones that set the agenda. This dependence is more accentuated depending on the social, political, economic or cultural level of the source.

In this genre, journalism stops fulfilling its social role of interpretation of reality since it is the interviewees who establish the contents.

It controls the flow and cadence of information delivery. On the other hand, the journalist becomes a propagator of what she tells him and everything that happens is programmed in advance.

Journalistic opinion genres

Opinion journalistic genres do not report current events. Rather, this type of text seeks to express opinions about information that has been disseminated in advance and that is known to the public.

Editorials

The editorial is an opinion piece where a fact of significant local, national or international significance is commented on, analyzed, interpreted and evaluated. This reflects the point of view of the editor or director of the newspaper and, consequently, of the newspaper itself.

Its intention is to make the reader reflect on particular facts. Sometimes they also seek to influence the views of the editorial reader. They are written under an expository-argumentative discursive scheme. Depending on the scheme applied, there are explanatory editorials and opinion editorials.

Letters to the Editor

This type of text is one of the most developed opinion journalistic genres in journalism in recent years. They represent the relationship between the journalistic media and their audience. People write these letters when they want to give an opinion on a published article or a fact published by the newspaper.

Like any other letter, the language used is informal within the refinement imposed by the language. Similarly, the rules of courtesy and decorum imposed by the society in which the writer and the journalistic medium operate determine the general tone of the letter.

Opinion articles

The opinion article is a text in which a particular fact is analyzed or interpreted. The writer of the article fixes his position and gives his evaluative judgment in relation to the subject and, as in the editorial, stamps his signature. However, the signature is personal as it represents the opinion of the author, which is not necessarily the same as the newspaper.

In addition, the length of this type of article is usually short, the topics covered are varied and their titles seek to be original and attractive.

Due to their informative intention, they resemble literary essays and also aim to call for reflection on any matter of human life.

Columns

Journalists who write within this journalistic genre of opinion are known as columnists. The column resembles an opinion piece, but its journalists generally work hard in the media. They can also set different positions in relation to the same topic.

It is a genre where you can find important representatives of literature and the arts in general. In the columns the language used is friendly, of camaraderie between author and reader.

critics

Criticisms are specialized texts in which opinions are given on areas of a certain artistic specialty. This work is done by experts known as critics.

In addition, his language is simple so that it is understood by all people, but at the same time he is passionate. It is about highlighting aspects of the works that may interest the public.

Journalistic genres

This type of genre combines the characteristics of the news program with the opinion genre. There is a great variety within interpretive journalistic genres, some of which will be detailed below.

Chronicles

Unlike other genres, the chronicle is even older than journalism. It has its origin in chronological accounts that take their pattern from the natural course of time.

The editor is known by the name of chronicler who makes the story as if he were a witness. Its main characteristic is the account of the events in a sequential and detailed manner.

Polls

This journalistic genre is used to make quick polls in relation to current issues. Its objective is to offer readers the public trend in relation to a specific topic.

It has its origins in the statistical survey for social purposes but differs from it in that the rigor of the mathematical models is obviated.

References

1. Garcia, VM & Gutierrez, LM (2011). Manual of journalistic genres. Bogotá: University of La Sabana.
2. Errami, A. (s / f). Guidebook of the Professional Journalist. Taken from isesco.org.ma.
3. Velásquez, CM et al. (2005). Manual of journalistic genres. Bogotá: University of La Sabana.
4. Dallal, A. (2007). Journalistic languages. Mexico: UNAM.
5. Vázquez Bermúdez, MA (2009). News on demand. Seville: Social Communication Editions and Publications.
6. González Briones, E.; Goldstein, A.; Cubino, RL and López Sobrino, B. (2012). The news and the report. Madrid: Ministry of Education.
7. Melo, JM de and Assis, F. de. (2016). Genres and journalistic formats: a classificatory model. Intercom: Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Comunicação, 39 (1), pp. 39-56.