The newsrooms are no longer those schools where journalists learned and honed their skills amidst puffs of smoke, neurotic screams and the hammering of keys. Those with gray hair are the exception among battalions of young people attentive to digital trends who must produce notes in bulk, with links, videos, and tags. The headlines of many newspapers in their digital version resemble each other. Either they are endless or they are hooks that do not fulfill their promise throughout the text. But both must contain the keywords that search engines dictate to them.
In the Mariano Melgar room, in the cloisters of the San Agustín University in the Peruvian city of Arequipa, Spanish is discussed in global digital media. The table, organized by EL PAÍS and the Royal Spanish Academy, is part of the International Congress of the Spanish Language (CILE). Journalists from different generations reflect. On the one hand, the Argentine Ricardo Kirschbaum, general editor of Clarion; the Peruvian Cecilia Valenzuela, director of Peru 21; and on the other, the Colombians Sarah Castro, former director of the newspaper As in Colombia and the United States; and Daniel Pacheco, general editor of the Colombian digital media The Empty Chair. The moderator, Álex Grijelmo, journalist for this newspaper and Spanish writer, member of the Colombian Academy of Language and renowned language scholar.
With the purpose of stimulating a discussion, Grijelmo asked brief questions from time to time: “What is the linguistic error that annoys you the most in your media?” Kirschbaum, who does not wish to be seen as a melancholic who refuses to see the new world pass by, seasoned the atmosphere with three points of view: the quality of writing is no longer a fundamental attribute of today’s journalism, universities provide poor journalistic training, and copy editors are a dying breed.
For Cecilia Valenzuela, journalism has become a constant battle against immediacy. In this voracious context, orality is robbing prose of its gifts. “That is very painful for those of us who love literature,” he says. He also admits that his newspaper resorts to “miss RAE”, because the industry has been hit so hard that they do not have a corrector.
Sarah Castro, a political scientist with extensive experience in sports media, is not only bothered by the linguistic errors that newspapers increasingly overlook, but also by the invasive advertising that monopolizes web pages and the lack of precision. “Today editors cannot be in charge of all the content that is produced. An enormous volume of information is required,” he explains.
Daniel Pacheco has another reading of things. He uses capital letters, and his eyes don’t hurt when he encounters a grammatical horror. “Perhaps human error will end up being vindicated in the future. It will be the last sign that this text was not produced by a machine,” he essays. Defends the use of emoticons, gifs or whatever it takes to connect with new audiences. In their environment, as in others, they do not resist artificial intelligence, but rather consider it an ally to optimize processes and save time.
Valenzuela does not agree with the linguistic insurgency in the newsrooms of using acronyms, anglicisms and faces with gestures. He doesn’t grant it. Consider that this means establishing strata in the culture and condemning people. “I feel younger fighting for living, complete and clear language than defending this modernity,” he says. But Pacheco refutes: it is necessary to break the molds to reach a youth that reads differently. “Language is irrepressible and a homeland of factions. Digital journalism has the obligation to be at the forefront of this type of communication.”
Grijelmo encourages the debate. He asks them about the feedback with their readers, if they still argue over a comma and if the job finally has a future. Kirschbaum is optimistic. Although machines have entered the field of language and are doing it increasingly better, they still lack irreplaceable journalistic virtues: “There is nothing that gives me greater satisfaction than publishing a hidden plot. AI will not be able to replace creativity or investigative skills. When there is a problem, the audience does not turn to social networks, but to journalism. That keeps my hopes alive.”
Castro insists that journalism cannot be guided by metrics. “We must go against the public,” he says, quoting Martín Caparrós. Meanwhile, Cecilia Valenzuela emphasizes that she maintains her enthusiasm because her newspaper strives to tell stories and because she has detected that there are communities very interested in receiving information on specific topics via email, newsletters or newsletters. Two generations have talked. Beyond grammatical discrepancies, they agree that the only way to survive the meteorite is quality content. The old journalistic precept: give the reader what they will not find elsewhere. Or even what I didn’t know I was looking for.