The president of the Spanish news agency EFE, Miguel Ángel Oliver, defended that the objective of journalists, “despite all emotions”, should be “to inform and not to distort, to inform and not to deform, to watch out for hollow oratory and to use the true value of words”. 

“Words, that great treasure that makes us more human and good or bad journalists”, added Oliver during his speech at the opening of the 17th International Seminar on Language and Journalism, which deals with ‘The language of wars: how to tell the story of conflict’.

 The Queen closed the seminar, organized by the San Millán de la Cogolla Foundation and the Fundación del Español Urgente (FundéuRAE) -promoted by the EFE Agency and the RAE-, which was inaugurated by Oliver and the Minister of Culture, Tourism, Sport and Youth of La Rioja (north of Spain), José Luis Pérez Pastor.

“Our job as journalists is to help understand the political, economic and social context in which a war takes place, which usually has disturbing effects around the world,” said Oliver, who referred to the language used in the coverage of wars and conflicts, in which ‘information and counter-information abound on all sides’.

This is pointed out in the “New urgent stylebook” of the EFE Agency, which also warns of the need for “an accurate and balanced view” and notes that “extreme care must be taken to provide an accurate and truthful view of the facts, verifying as much as possible the content (particularly that which is disseminated on social networks)”.

It should also specify “very clearly the information provided by witnesses or parties in conflict that could not be verified by our staff and identifying unequivocally the information provided by sources that have an interest in the dispute,” says the 'New Urgent Stylebook'.

 A deadly reality
For him, in a war, “the strategy of each side will always be to seek, through the news, adhesion to its cause and repudiation of its adversary” and he believes that “war is also carried out through the media. It is a dangerous reality.” “And, of course, although on another level, it is a very dangerous reality for journalists, who make of their trade an offering: 'Dying to tell', as Hernán Zin described it in a moving documentary about this risky trade of telling wars,” he recalled.

“We must work together to guarantee truthful and objective information, which can never cease to be empathetic with the victims and critical of the executioners,” said the president of EFE, for whom this seminar is an opportunity for reflection and action.

 He thanked the journalists who cover war conflicts for their work, “those who expose themselves every day so that we can know what is happening in Gaza, in Kharkov, in Damascus or in many other cities whose existence we did not know about until now”. 

Oliver wished that “these days serve as a tribute to those who have lost their lives in the performance of their journalistic work. To all of them, my respect and admiration”. 

The codes of life and death
“Deciding to stay until the end... Although it may sound crazy that's what many of the tribe members, as they are sometimes known, have wanted to do over the years. Uncover an ever-elusive truth. To inhabit a scenario that is always uncertain,” he said.

He believes that, many times, “codes are blown up when bullets and bombs whistle around you. The codes of written and spoken language, visual codes, photographic codes... the codes of life and death...”

It is estimated that, since the beginning of this century, nearly 2,000 journalists have been killed in the various wars around the world and, according to data from Reporters Without Borders, more than 140 journalists, photojournalists and media professionals have been killed in Gaza alone in the last year.

For him, “then and now, wars were and are the last place, the destination to which you go and from which you may not return” and “that is the reason why the war narrative, of life or death, goes beyond the framework of diplomatic language.”

“Seen from the outside, sometimes it can be thought that there is an increase in the rhetoric of 'romantic' militarism installed in some media” and, from the linguistic point of view, ‘it is common to see how literary language jumps to the chronicles, in which personal experiences and opinions are interwoven’.

For example, he cited the first chronicles of the recent fall of the regime of Bashar El Asab, “a lightning offensive and, behind it, a small army of journalists and war photographers, who penetrated to the heart of the horror in just a few hours”; and asked “how can you tell something like that without the words beating like your own heart?”.

https://agenciaefe.es/xvii-seminario-internacional-de-lengua-y-periodismo/