On the occasion of this March 14, Cuban Press Day, there are many students and colleagues who have asked me to write about the journalistic web. And here is part of my experience as a web editor, during 24 years of work at Radio Angulo digital.
I tell you, first of all, that before mastering the language, and of course, the intentionality when writing for the journalistic website, it is necessary for the press professional to know how to use a computer and have knowledge of the design of that publication, how to write for a digital media, what opportunities Artificial Intelligence offers, know word processors such as Word, know how to navigate the Internet, use graphics, audio, video, digital photos as support in information, news, chronicles, interviews and great reports.
After the journalist has a general command of the computer universe, he will then have to be clear about who he is writing for. The reporter who integrates the digital newsroom of any Cuban media in the network of networks must know that the potential recipient, in the case of Radio Angulo digital are, to a large extent, Cubans residing in North America, Latin America, Europe, although even in Australia tall and blond Cuban immigrants have arrived. Because this is what the government of that country asked for them, according to what they say, when the Mariel Crisis took place. The vast majority of them are technicians, skilled workers, professionals, university students and entrepreneurs who use a highly trained Internet user who currently represents a potential reader of more than three billion people who already have Internet at work, at home or enjoy the wireless spider web in a city park.
After having a broad mastery of everything we have said and knowing how to write for a Cuban digital media. The journalist who works for these media must work with intention, because behind each piece of information, article, interview or report there must be an objective and intention, behind a manipulation there is an intention, behind every good headline and photo there is an intention.
Behind a simple sentence located in the third, fourth or last line of a piece of information, for example, there may be an intention that makes it clear what is the editorial line by which that writer who wrote with objectivity responds.
Sometimes the information or article published is completely objective, but the graphic support completely denies the veracity of the event by falling into the manipulation of the information or topic published in favor of transnational information interests.
CNN en Español is the example we know best today, when in the 90s of the last century. After the fall of the Soviet Empire and the community of socialist countries of Eastern Europe. It addressed the energy crisis that Cuba was going through in 1993 and published very objective information. But in the middle of those six paragraphs it said that Cuban oil was highly sulfurous and put an end to thermoelectric plants.
To achieve the best intention in the language of digital journalism of our media, it is necessary to persuade. But how to persuade in the great network of networks. Above all, online persuading means using techniques of opening, probing, argumentation, response and closing at the right time. To do this, it is necessary to:
Analyze the purpose of the website. Before you write the first letter of your website, you must analyze the purpose of the website. What does he want it for? What is it trying to offer? What do you look for from your visitors? Would you like to be asked for more information?
Study the Web in depth: Learn as much as possible about your product/service. List the characteristics focusing on the most positive ones, highlight the advantages arguing their benefits.
Internet users look for answers to specific questions and are concerned with looking for information in a medium that is familiar to them. Give him those answers and he will have taken a giant step to distance himself from the big media that globalize information in favor of his interests.
With the development of Artificial Intelligence, the most important thing is to know how to ask well. Because AI will give us the exact answer we want as web journalists.
Determine the Internet user: Determine who you are going to address. If you don’t know, who are you going to write to? Who are you? How knowledgeable are they? Are they in a position to read our pages?
Communicate for the receiver: Communicate in the language of your recipients. Try to balance the length of the communication according to the audience and the purpose pursued. Keeping in mind that words do not mean the same thing to everyone. Precise concepts, concrete words, short sentences, simple vocabulary. Complement your argument with images and texts that make “calls to action”. Use humor to arouse interest and conclude without boring, if necessary.
When the Cuban press arrived on the Internet, it ended the exclusivity of the large and small media that talked about Cuba. Where the signals of Radio Habana Cuba did not reach, now you can know the Cuban reality.
Faced with this reality, what should the language be like on the Cuban journalistic web:
-Choose the most appropriate language when writing, from the simplest information to an excellent report.
-Write the text clearly. Remember that he does it for a reader from other latitudes who does not have the same sociolect as Cubans, even if he speaks Spanish. Example: Candonga for a Cuban from the island is where you can buy different products, while for a Latino living in the United States it is a flea market.
-Avoid the profusion of acronyms. Use only the best known in Cuba and in the world. Example: PCC, UN, AIDS, HIV, Unicef, NATO, Unesco, and say its meaning from the first moment you write it.
-Exploit the human factor and do not forget the geographical and political proximity.
-Use, within your possibilities, graphics, maps, audio or video in current information, articles and reports.
Do not renounce localisms, because the journalistic web would cease to be Cuban, but explain when you use them the meaning that we Cubans give it.
-Look for a simple and at the same time striking wording. Remember that you write so that everyone understands you from the first stroke of reading on the screen.
-Do not abuse the repetition of the Cuban demonym when writing for the digital medium. It is understandable that if you write on a page of Cuba or the province it is not so necessary to exploit the demonyms. Do it only in essential cases.
– Headlines: remember not to exceed eight words. The headlines must be eye-catching and exploit the richness of the Spanish language that we Cubans speak. Example: The Royal Academy of the Spanish Language already included yellow as transport inspector in its last dictionary, based on the name that we Cubans gave to that job.
-Exploit your cultural level when writing interviews, articles, reports, and chronicles. Overflow your imagination, because the medium is international digital, but uses the principles of the flat press, that is, only the technological support changes.
-Don’t be so dry when writing the simplest information. In today’s journalism, objectivity and subjectivity are mixed and you can be subjective when writing with objectivity or you can be objective when writing with subjectivity. Remember what the great journalist José Martí said: “The truth comes faster when it is said beautifully” and I added and “so does information”.
-Remember that great journalists wrote good journalism working every day.
Intentionality:
When it comes to working for the journalistic web, it is not enough to tell the truth without being clear about the intentionality of the language to achieve our main purpose: to write about the Cuban reality for dissemination on the Internet.
Language must always have an intention, so we should not neglect it. We are an alternative media and we offer information to the rest of the planet through the most appropriate journalistic genres on the fact or topic that the journalist addresses at that time.
By way of summary, I tell you that the formula: Language, persuasion, intention is a topic that must be studied in every web team of the digital media to achieve the perfection of our work in the super highway of information. Reaffirm the prestige gained by the seriousness of our work in the coverage from the simplest curiosity to the great political, cultural and economic events occurred in this part of America.
If you have understood everything I have said then I tell you what a Roman emperor, like Julius Caesar, would say if he had a laptop: Don’t worry, the web is down. Go ahead. The Internet awaits you.
By: José Miguel Ávila Pérez / Translated by Radio Angulo
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