BETWEEN OBJECTIVITY AND EMOTIONALITY: Proyecto Puente’s disaster journalism

This article presents a case study on an award-winning journalistic running story, that of the toxic spill over the Río Sonora by the Mexican digital-born news organization Proyecto Puente. This running story received the National Journalism Award in the News Coverage category in 2014 and it distinguished itself due to its emotional character. Based on quantitative and qualitative content analysis, as well as semi-structured interviews, it examines how the strategic rituals of objectivity and emotionality interacted in this running story. The results allow us to advance Tuchman and Wahl-Jorgensen’s theorizations as they warn us about the centrality of “being there” and “being the voice of those who have no voice” in the coverage of environmental disasters from a citizen perspective.

Key words
Journalism; Disaster; Objectivity; Emotionality; Mexico

Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores em Jornalismo (SBPJor) Secretaria da SBPJor, Faculdade de Comunicação, Universidade de Brasília(UnB)., ICC Norte, Subsolo, Sala ASS 633 - cep: 70910-900, Brasília - DF / Brasil - Brasília - DF - Brazil
E-mail: sbpjor.dir.adm@gmail.com

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[1] TRANSLATED BY: Víctor Hugo Reyna

	Objectivity	Emotionality
Balance	Presents the two sides of a story	Does not necessarily present conflicting possibilities
Evidence	Presents supporting evidence	Does not necessarily present supporting evidence when describing emotions
Attribution	Uses quotes judiciously	Uses quotes judiciously
Structure	Structures the information in an appropriate sentence, usually in an inverted pyramid	Narrative diversity, predominance of anecdotes, and personalized writing to try to involve the public

Technique	Dimensions of analysis
Quantitative content analysis	- Frequency of the emotionality pattern - Type of lead
Qualitative content analysis	- Externalization of emotional labor - “Being there” - “Be the voice of those who have no voice”
Semi-structured interview	- Experiences and perceptions regarding the tension between objectivity and emotionality