This document provides an overview of the differences between journalism and literature. Some of the key differences highlighted include: - Journalism aims for objectivity while literature can be subjective. - Journalism reports on current events while literature often deals with past events. - Journalists must report the truth while writers have more creative freedom in their storytelling techniques. The document then profiles several prominent Argentine journalists and writers, including José Hernández, Jorge Luis Borges, Tomás Eloy Martínez, and analyzes some of their work spanning both journalism and literature.

1. “Journalism and Literature”
Patricia Nigro Ph. D.
pnigro@austral.edu.ar
Facultad de Comunicación

2. Journalism and Literature
JOURNALISM LITERATURE
Non fiction. Fiction.
It tries to be “objective”. It can be “subjective”.
Mass information. Art for few people.
Different sources. One author but there can be
several narrators.
Clear, precise message. Ambiguous, metaphorical
message.
Actual characters. Created characters.
It deals with “hot”, current
events. (Carpentier)
It deals with “cold”, past events.
It tries to grasp the interest
of the reader.
It tries to grasp the interest
of the reader.

3. Journalism and Literature
JOURNALISM LITERATURE
The technique is informative. The technique is esthetic.
It can use literature means of
style and narrative
techniques but it has always
to tell the truth.
It uses means of style and
narrative techniques to
create a new world of joy, of
sadness, of human values.
The journalist chooses a point of
view.
The writer may choose many
points of views, he does not
need to be commited to any
ideology.
The journalist works for a
newspaper that is based in
an ideology.
The writer may have to make
some concessions to his
editors, if he wants his book
published.

4. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento (1811-1888)
• El Zonda (San Juan,
Argentina).
• El Mercurio (Chile).
• President of la Argentina
(1868-1874).
• Latin America’ s teacher.

5. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Bartolomé Mitre (1821- 1906)
• Founder of La Nación, one of Latin
America’s leading newspapers.
• President of la Argentina (1862-
1868).
• His most important works are Historia
de Belgrano y de la independencia
argentina (1902) and Historia de San
Martín y de la emancipación
sudamericana (1907).

6. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
José Hernández (1834-1886)
• La Reforma Pacífica (Buenos
Aires).
• El Argentino (Paraná, Entre Ríos).
• El Eco de Corrientes (Corrientes).
• La Capital (Rosario, Santa Fe).
• El Río de la Plata.
• La Patria (Montevideo, Uruguay).
• Author of El gaucho Martín Fierro
(1872) and La vuelta de Martín
Fierro (1879).

7. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Miguel Cané (1851-1905)
• Politician, lawyer and academic.
• His most important book is
Juvenilia (1884).
• Provincial and national
representative, diplomat in
Colombia, Venezuela and France.

8. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938)
• La Montaña (Córdoba).
• La Nación (Buenos Aires).
• His most important novel is La
guerra gaucha (1905).
• He is also a great poet. His finest
book of poems is Romances del
Río Seco (1938).

9. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Ricardo Rojas (1882- 1957)
• President of the University of Buenos
Aires (1926-1930).
• He created the Institute of Literatura
Argentina at the University of Buenos
Aires.
• He is the first one who wrote a history of
argentine literature (Historia de la
literatura argentina, 1917- 1922).

10. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
• Professor of English Literature at the
University of Buenos Aires (1956-1970).
• Director of National Library (1955-1973).
• He won The Cervantes Prize (1983).
• Many honorary phds.
• Revista Multicolor de los Sábados (Crítica).
• Revista El Hogar.
• Revista Sur .
• La Nación.
• Clarín.

11. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Roberto Arlt (1900- 1942)
• His most important novels
are Los siete locos (1929)
and Los lanzallamas
(1931).
• Crítica.
• El Mundo.
• Aguasfuertes porteñas
(1933)y Aguasfuertes
españolas (1936).

12. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Eduardo Mallea (1903- 1982)
• Diplomat and writer.
• Editor in chief of La Nación
literary supplement.
• His most important works are
the novel La bahía del silencio
(1940) and the essay Historia
de una pasión argentina
(1937).

13. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Marco Denevi (1922- 1998)
• His most important novels are
Rosaura a las diez (1955) and
Ceremonia Secreta (1965).
• La Nación.
• Clarín.
• He dedicated to political
journalism.

14. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Rodolfo Walsh (1927- 1977)
• His most important work is Operación
Masacre (1957), a research on the
assassination of opposition figures during
the military goverment of President
Aramburu.
• He founded the Prensa Latina Agency
in Cuba (1960).
• In 1973, he joined “montoneros” a
guerrilla group which was peronist illegal
association and he was killed in 1977. He
is now a “desaparecido” (missing person).

15. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)
• Film critic for La Nación.
• Primera Plana and Panorama: political
magazines.
• Página 12.
• He was a distinguished professor at
Rutgers University, New Jersey.
• Columnist for The New York Times
Syndicate and La Nación.
• His most important novels are La novela de
Perón (1985) and Santa Evita (1995).

16. Journalists and writers in la Argentina
Osvaldo Soriano (1943-1997)
• La Opinión. (Jacobo Timerman’s newspaper)
• Sports journalist.
• He wrote “El caso Robledo Puch” (1972) and
he became famous as a writer, the article
was included in Artistas, locos y criminales
(1983).
• Página 12.
• One of his famous novels is Triste, solitario
y final (1973), the story of Stan Laurel.

17. José Hernández and Jorge Luis Borges
• Borges is certainly Argentina's
greatest twentieth-century writer. His
1953 essays book about Martín Fierro
shows his interest and love for his
country.
• He had nothing but praise for the
aesthetic merit of Martín Fierro, but
refused to consider its hero a role
model of moral merit who shows
argentinian identity.

18. José Hernández: journalist
• He wrote for many neswsparpers, some of them were
founded by himself.
• He was a militar, a politician, a journalist and a
writer.
• He only lived 52 years and was persecuted for his
ideas by President Sarmiento’s goverment.
• He never received payment for his job as a
journalist, he was an idealistic man who always
defended his beliefs which seemed best for him at
that moment.

19. José Hernández: journalist
• Hernández wanted the best for his country and he
was very worried by the critical situation of the
gauchos and the indians. He was problably one of the
solitary voices that raised to speak for the speechless.
• Althoug he made political journalism, he was never
offensive with his contenders. That was very
unususual at that time. Even so, he never showed
any weakness to fight for his beliefs.

20. Jorge Luis Borges: journalist
• In 1933, he gained an
editorial appointment at
the literary supplement
Crítica. He wrote essays,
literary forgeries, made
famous works
translations, and served
as a literary adviser.
• He wrote weekly
columns for the female
magazine El Hogar,
which was published
from 1936 to 1939.

21. Jorge Luis Borges: journalist

22. Jorge Luis Borges: journalist
• In 1937, he worked as a librarian in the Miguel Cané
Municipal Library, where he had a lot of time to write
and read.
• For some years, he kept on writing articles, essays,
poems in different newspapers and magazines. He did
received payment for his job. In fact, he needed it.
• Finally, he suffered political persecution from Perón’s
administration and he began to work as a lecturer.

23. Jorge Luis Borges (1899- 1986)

24. Tomás Eloy Martínez (1934-2010)
• He was born in Tucumán. He got his
degree in Latin American and Spanish
Literature.
• Film critic for La Nación.(1957-1961)
• Editor in chief of Primera Plana (1962-
1969) and Panorama (1970-1972): both
political magazines.
• Director of La Opinión Literary Supplement.
(1972-1975)
• Between 1975 and 1983, he lived in exile
in Caracas, Venezuela.

25. Tomás Eloy Martínez
• He founded two journals El Diario de Caracas
and Siglo XXI in México. (1977- 1979)
• He also created the Cultural Supplement of
Página 12. (1991-1995)
• Since 1996, he became columnist for The New
York Times Syndicate, El País (Spain) and La
Nación.
• He was a teacher at University of Maryland.
(1984-1987) and, since 1995 till his death, he
took a position as distinguished professor and
director of the Latin American Studies program
at Rutgers University, New Jersey.

26. Tomás Eloy Martínez: a writer
• His most important novels are La
novela de Perón (1985) and
Santa Evita (1995).
• He won the Alfaguara award for
El vuelo de la reina (2002).
• In 2009, he became a member
of National Journalism Academy.
• He was one of the teachers of
Fundación para un Nuevo
Periodismo, created by his friend
Gabriel García Márquez.

27. Tomás Eloy Martínez: a writer
• Santa Evita, the story of
what happened with her
body after Perón outhrown
in 1955, was translated to
32 languages and
published in 50 countries
(1995). Its Argentinian
best seller novel.

28. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his writing style
• La pasión según Trelew
(1974) was part of the
journalistic movement the
New Journalism because it
is a journalistic report to
find the truth of what was
called the “Trelew masacre”
(Trelew manslought)
(1972).

29. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his writing style
• True fiction: to take
historical people and facts
and write a novel about
them.
• New Journalism: to use
literary techniques to tell
the thruth of any fact.
• E. g. Truman Capote’s In
cold blood.

30. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his writing style
• A novel was, in his own words, a full freedom
statement and so a novelist can manage reality as he
needs it.
• He agrees with Hayden White that narratives could
be considered the key to work out the problem of
transforming knowledge into language.
• He tried to reach something that couldn’t be reached in
another way: the story behind the history.
• He tells fictional events as if they were real facts.

31. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas
• His main subject is Argentinians
history, our identity, the political
events we have suffered, our
people and our leaders.
• He was trying to find who we are
and why we are by writing
novels, articles and by teaching
about our best writers.
• He did not write non fiction but
stories full of historical
characters.

32. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas
• Every great writer of Latin
America was once a
journalist: Hernández,
Borges, Arlt, Gabriel
García Márquez
(Colombia), Juan Carlos
Onetti (Uruguay), Augusto
Roa Bastos (Paraguay),
Alfonso Reyes (México),
José Martí (Cuba)...

33. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas
• Every great journalist become
sooner or later in a great writer.
• He said: “What I write is what I
am, and if I am not faithful to
myself, I can’t be faithful to my
readers.”
• “Only what is written is
historical.” (Robin Collingwood).
It means what is written is
permanent.

34. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas
• Courage is needed to write and
to talk about reality.
• Journalism has two goals:
taking care of the language (its
tool) and its ethic.
• Journalists don’t need to
reconcile with nobody and with
nothing.
• A journalist must constantly
think about his reader. He
must be honest, research a lot,
be faithful to the truth no matter
what.

35. Tomás Eloy Martínez: his ideas
• Journalism is a way of thinking,
of creating, of helping people to
have a better life.
• Journalists are privileged
witnesses.
• It is important to keep calm and
to have eyes wide open.
• Justice and freedom should not
be separated. In fact, this is what
democracy means.