Differences between News and Report

News and report

The News and the reportage are two ways journalistic texts, which are characterized by their informative nature and by being disclosed in the masive means of comunication written such as print newspapers, magazines, or digital news media.

The news

The News It is a text of immediate validity and daily elaboration, which reviews for readers a specific fact or event that may be interesting for public opinion.

The most recent and relevant global or local day-to-day events are newsworthy events that can be reported only once and then lose their validity.

The news responds to a strict criterion of novelty, so it never deals with historical, reflective or playful events or events. They are objective texts, truthful, concrete and relatively brief.

Features of the news

The report

Reports are planned documentary inquiries, the purpose of which is to inform but from a deeper and broader perspective than news. They are long texts and abundant in details, which even use narrative resources, personal postures and expressive turns that are not used in the simplest texts of journalism.

The report emerged in the 17th century, when news writers fed the gazettes with impressions of their travels, opinions and stories. The first reports date from the 19th century, when journalism found its place in the fields of war and special emissaries were sent to portray conflicts and later recompose what was experienced to inform the public.

With the advent of new media and new technologies, other forms emerged news reports close to the report, such as the photo report (visual report) or the documentary audiovisual. However, today the report continues to be the product of a sustained investigative effort and therefore requires more time, preparation and talent from the journalist.

Features of the report

Differences between news and report

1. Validity. While the news is ephemeral and fast, the report lasts a little longer: it can be reread later without losing its validity.
2. Extension. The news is brief and concise, while a report has the space and time it deems necessary.
3. Objectivity. Both types of text must be objective and truthful, but the writing of the news is punctual and devoid of nuances, while in the report it is possible to find points of view, speculations and reflections.
4. Expressive resources. The news may be accompanied by a photograph, but in general all the information is offered in a flat, simple and direct way. The report, on the other hand, can make use of rhetorical, expressive, poetic resources, photographs, interviews, archive material, etc.
5. Authorship. The news are not usually signed, nor do they belong to an author, but rather be the product of a newsroom that works together. Instead, every report bears the names of those responsible, even if it is an investigative team.

Examples of news

1. Crisis in Chile: Piñera announces that her country will not host the APEC meeting or the COP-25 Climate Change Conference
2. Forever 21 files for bankruptcy in the United States
3. A dream 2019 for the Springboks: Rugby Championship and World Cup Champions
4. Nicolás Maduro brings Christmas forward
5. Facebook gained 27% less until September, but continues to grow in users

Reporting examples

1. 30 years after the end of the wall that divided two worlds: why the Berlin Wall was built and what it meant for the Cold War
2. The drama of living without water in Venezuela
3. US border - Mexico: the images that illustrate the "breaking point" reached by the migrant crisis
4. Islamic State: the threat continues
5. El Salvador, death around every corner