El género de opinión en la prensa diaria: funciones y exigencias

Abstract

The singularity of the daily written press lies in the achivement of qualified information, which besides reporting outstanding news must offer the clues of its own explanation, interpretation and wording. Press health depends on developing its identity in this way and also on carrying out its specific functions. In this context the contribution of opinion articles is decisiveand it must be combined with a relevant information. So, the journalistic approach will join the empiric checking and the topic verification. In particular, the opinion genre is an essential way to contrast and filter the overinformation and underinformation phenomena which arise inside and outside every medium, polluting the Mass-media universe. A situation full of informative and opinion "noises" needs to purify formal and conceptual recurrent stereotypes. In the effort to get a qualified information Basque and Spanish daily press is the one who shows a considerable strengthening. It focuses on the informative approach of news, it multiplies services and conquers the spaces which were reserved to general information resources in the past (suitable for the 2nd and 3rd grade information) and now they have turned into a superficial and sensationalist style.