Understanding Journalistic Opinion: Editorials, Articles, and Hybrid Forms

Posted on Feb 25, 2025 in Arts and Humanities

Understanding Journalistic Opinion

Editorials

An editorial is a newspaper article that presents the publication’s opinion on a current topic of interest. Key characteristics include:

  1. Deals with current events.
  2. Addresses issues of high importance to the newspaper.
  3. Reflects the views, political and ideological orientation, and corporate social responsibility of the publisher.
  4. Typically written by specialized editors.
  5. Appears without a fixed structure, but usually follows a pyramid scheme, building to a climax at the end:
  • Presentation of facts.
  • Critical analysis.
  • Justification of judgments.
  • Conclusion.
Generally takes the form of an exposition or argument. Aims for objectivity but inevitably introduces ideological bias, connotative elements, and subjective viewpoints. The title is usually a creative or evaluative phrase.

Articles

A newspaper article where subjective opinion prevails, presenting a particular issue from the author’s perspective. Key features include:

  1. Expresses the personal opinion of the author on diverse content.
  2. Employs a critical approach ranging from straightforward exposition to parody or satire.
  3. May appear casually or as a regular column.

Criticism

Journalistic opinion offering a reasoned critique based on cultural, artistic, cinematic, or historical contexts.

Text Opinion: Lexico-semantic Aspects

  1. Uses a sophisticated vocabulary.
  2. Features an abundance of abstract nouns.
  3. May incorporate words or expressions from other registers for enhanced expressiveness.
  4. Employs rhetorical devices such as metaphor, metonymy, and hyperbole to strengthen persuasive and expressive functions, as well as aesthetics.

Text Opinion: Morphosyntactic Aspects

  1. Complex syntax with various subordinate clauses and polysyndeton.
  2. Asyndeton may appear depending on the author’s intention.
  3. Literary devices like hyperbaton serve to enhance subjectivity.
  4. Diversity in verb forms (indicative, conditional, passive constructions) reflects the text’s nature (expository, argumentative).

Hybrid Forms

News-Commentary

A hybrid journalistic genre where the reporter presents a story while simultaneously offering their values and judgments from a subjective viewpoint. Key features include:

  1. Selects and interprets facts.
  2. Usually signed, reflecting the journalist’s personal style.
  3. Shares points of contact with chronicles, but while chronicles explain facts, news-commentaries interpret and use them to express personal opinions.
  4. News-commentary interprets and uses facts to express personal opinions.
  5. One of the most widely used methods in journalism today.

Common errors in news-commentary include:

  1. Using a more literary language than journalistic style.
  2. Losing sight of the news and failing to maintain some objectivity.
  3. Overly literary approach.

Chronicle

A hybrid journalistic form reporting on an event while also offering the correspondent’s opinion. The chronicle is an assessment of events by someone close to them, presenting facts in chronological order. It differs from news by its value judgments and from reports by its choices, interpretations, and justifications. Chroniclers are often residents of countries or capitals of specialized interest, covering topics such as sports and entertainment.