Lecciones para aprender del cubrimiento de hechos violentos

Abstract

This article is based on the first advances taken from an information quality research, made by the Journalism Section of the Social Communications School at La Sabana University. For such research we have selected –as an example- the journalism work made by the Colombian principal TV news programs about the outrage on El Nogal Club, at Bogotá. The article tends to incite the good things and show the bad ones about those transmissions, in order to hardly look for solutions. Therefore, the writer focuses on three aspects: showing disgusting images, pressure on the victims or their relatives to obtain information, and use of confusing expressions. For each aspect the writer marks either skills and mistakes made by the mass media, in order to suggest the establishment of some behavior criteria regarding the coverage of violent facts, so the journalists can also have enough elements to measure their work quality.