GLOSSARY OF TERMS FROM THE JOURNALISTIC FIELD

News agency : Company in charge of collecting information and then sharing it or selling it to media
that hire its services, whether they are newspapers, television, radio or magazines.

Brief advertisements or “by words”: Texts of very short length, encapsulated, in which individuals
offer or request services and products. This is a section of newspapers that is already out of use due
to the rise of specific digital platforms.

Article: Opinion journalistic text, of a subjective nature and persuasive intention, about a current
topic.

Header : Top part of the newspaper cover; indicates the name of the medium, the date of
publication and other information of interest such as the edition number or price.

Letter to the editor: Journalistic text that a reader sends to a newspaper in order to make public his
or her opinion on a topic. The newspaper can publish it or not.

Billboard : Section of a newspaper that deals with film and theater releases.

Textual quotes : Literal statements by a person, of interest for understanding a news item. They
provide objectivity and truthfulness to the text.

Clickbait : Technique used by digital media to get more visits to the website. To do this, the media
write sensational, misleading or deliberately ambiguous headlines whose sole objective is to attract
readers' attention and make them click on the link.

Column: Article that appears permanently in a newspaper in which an author periodically gives his
opinion on a topic. It usually appears in a column (hence its name).

Commentary : Opinion text, subjective in nature, that interprets an event, especially of a political
nature.

Back cover : Last page of the newspaper.

Contrast : Test information to verify its accuracy and veracity.

Correspondent : Journalist in charge of providing information from a foreign country to the media
outlet for which he or she works. The war correspondent is a correspondent deployed to a war
conflict zone.

Criticism: Journalistic text that combines information and opinion about an event or product related
to art and culture (literary criticism, film criticism, etc.). Also called a review .

Chronicle: Journalistic text that combines information and opinion about a sporting event (sports
chronicle), political event (political chronicle), bullfighting event (bullfighting chronicle), etc.

“Fourth estate” : Appellation given to journalism and the media in general, due to their importance
and ability to influence society.

Informative body: Part of a news item in which detailed information about a news item is offered,
and which follows the introduction or “ lead ”. The information in the informative body can be
organized chronologically or in an “ inverted pyramid ” manner.

Editor : Person who owns a newspaper. As the ownership of a medium is normally shared, it is
called an editorial board .

Editorial (male gender): Opinion journalistic text, normally unsigned, that collects the opinion of a
media outlet about a current topic.

Entradilla (“lead”, in English) : Introductory paragraph in which the news is summarized, answering
all or most of the fundamental questions: what, who, how, when, where and why.

Special envoy: Journalist who travels punctually to the location of a news story, usually abroad, and
sends information from the same place where it is produced.

Interview: Journalistic text of information, in a dialogic form, in which the journalist asks questions
to a person of interest, who answers. It can be of two types: informative interview or personality
interview , if the interest of the interview does not reside in a specific event, but in the general
relevance of the interviewee.

Obituary: Text that notifies about the death of a person. It has a very defined and characteristic
shape.

Photojournalism: Journalistic genre in which photographs are used as the main means of providing
information. These photographs are known as photo news .

Source: Person or institution that provides information to the journalist so that he or she has
sufficient elements to produce a news story.

Journalistic functions: Various intentions of a newspaper; fundamentally inform, create opinion and
entertain.

Infographic : Image generated by a computer program, which supports a news or report.

Ladillo : Subtitle that is placed in the text of an interview and that helps to structure its content.

Journalistic language : Special use of language that an editor makes when writing journalistic texts.
Although opinion texts have a more personal style, information texts should be simple, concise and
clear.

Line of credit : Name of the editor and place from which a journalistic text is written.
It normally appears after the body of headlines, in small print.

Editorial line : Ideology of the editorial board of a media, and that guides its contents towards
certain political, social, economic ideas...

Layout designer : Person who designs the shape of the newspaper, member of the layout team . In
other media, the layout process is known as the editing process.

Mass media (or “mass-media”, in English ): Media that reach a large number of people: press,
radio, television and the Internet.
Press release : Writing made by a person or entity and given to the media to transmit information.
It is the media who must evaluate and analyze whether that note deserves relevance or not.

News : A journalistic text of information, of a narrative nature, that reports on an event, answering
six key questions about it: what, who, where, when, how and why. It must be characterized by its
relevance and interest; It must also be a truthful, objective, clear and concise text.

Fake news (“fake news” in English) : Information published in a medium that has not been
contrasted or verified and that ends up being incorrect, uncertain and false. If published on
purpose, they constitute a form of misinformation and manipulation.

Obituary : News of the death of a relevant person, in which his figure and career are explained.

Investigative journalism : Work carried out by the journalist with the aim of uncovering information
that governments, individuals or companies fight to keep secret.

Independent journalist (“freelance” in English) : Journalist who works by himself, without the
coverage of a specific media outlet, offering his news and pieces to different media that pay money
for said content.

Caption : Concise information about an image that appears just below it, in a small font size.

Inverted pyramid : Technique for organizing the contents of a news item in which the most
important information is offered at the beginning with greater details and the less important
information is placed later, lower and taking up less space, thus simulating an inverse pyramid
structure. .

Truncated pyramid : Technique for organizing the contents of a news item in which chronological
order and inverted pyramid order are combined.

Yellow press : Type of journalism that presents the news highlighting its most striking aspects, even
if they are secondary, with the commercial purpose of provoking astonishment or scandal. It is also
called tabloid press .

Pink or “heart” press: Type of journalism specialized in news and gossip about social celebrities.

Front page or cover : First page of the newspaper in which the name of the newspaper and the
main news of the day appear in summary form.

Scoop : Verified information that a media outlet or journalist has obtained before the rest and that
allows them to publish and disseminate before any other media.

Editor : Person who writes a journalistic text, not necessarily the same person who obtained the
information. The group of editors is known as the editorial team , and they are led by the editor-in-
chief , the most important position in a newspaper after the editor and deputy editor.

Closing : Part of the informative body that can appear in a news item as a closing.

Report : Journalistic text in which a journalist investigates and writes in depth and detail about a
specific event or character, not necessarily current. It is longer and has a less rigid structure than the
news. It usually has graphic support, with images or infographics.

Reporter : Journalist who seeks and provides information from the place of the news.

Press conference or press conference: Meeting organized by persons of interest, companies,

institutions or public bodies, in which they call on the media to provide information or offer their
version of an event to journalists. Normally journalists can ask questions.

Section: Each of the parts into which a newspaper is divided, depending on the topic covered
(national, international, local, economics, sports, etc.). The journalist in charge of a section is called
section chief .

Events: Section in which dramatic and morbid news appears (accidents, crimes, catastrophes...) that
may be of interest to the reader.

Summary: Part of the front page located in a margin and that advances, in the form of a list, the
most important issues discussed in the newspaper.

Supplement : Complementary publication that is added to a newspaper. It can be a monothematic

supplement (economics, education, etc.) or multi-thematic ( magazine or magazine ).

Tertulia: Common journalistic genre on radio and television in which people specialized in a specific
topic debate and discuss in a more informal tone than usual, under the direction of a presenter who
introduces the topics to be discussed.

Circulation : Number of copies of a newspaper that are printed from the same edition.

Headline: Phrase or sentence that heads a journalistic text. When it appears accompanied by a
pretitle or subtitle , the headline has a more expressive tone and is intended to attract the reader's
attention. The pretitles or subtitles in this case have a more explanatory nature.

Free Tribune : Opinion journalistic text signed by a relevant person not related to the medium that
publishes it. It is very extensive, usually taking up the entire page of a newspaper.