Juan Carlos Guardela Vásquez (San Juan Nepomuceno, Bolívar) is a social communicator, chronicler and university professor. He has worked in the press, radio and television. He has published, among others, the books of chronicles El edén vencido (2020) and Lo que va a sanar espanta (2011). It was anthologized in The Best of Latin American Journalism with a foreword by Tomás Eloy Martínez and published by Editorial Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), 2006.

Fiction and reality

Many authors say that this dilemma is false, but I believe that in the current climate, returning to the debate is legitimate. Should we separate fiction and reality, in terms of writing, especially when practicing journalism? There are two sides, and I will attempt to describe them here.

For some writers everything is fiction, since writing is mimesis; more prosaically, an imitation of reality. In imitation, it is acceptable to introduce dialogue or fictional characters in order to convey a reality not yet told. For other writers, there is a clear separation between literature and journalism. When writing facts, they must be respected. These authors argue that if a fictional element encroaches, no matter how small, it devalues the result.

Some years ago the Mexican Juan Villoro settled the discussion with his essay "La crónica, ornitorrinco de la prosa", comparing the chronicle to the animal, due to the plurality of genres it employs. "The prejudice"- he says - "that saw the writer as artist and the journalist as craftsman is obsolete. A successful column is literature under pressure". The column can use the tools of the novel, the report, the short story, the interview, the theatre, the essay, and the autobiography".

This definition is defended by enthusiasts of interdisciplinarity, since for them the traditional boundaries of various academic disciplines can be crossed, just as the boundaries between various schools of thought can be breached as new requirements emerge or new theoretical approaches are developed.

The separation between true and false discourse emerged with the Sophists, in the period between Hesiod and Plato. Their rise to eminence was based precisely on the very thing for which they were criticized: the search for victory through the elaboration of arguments, rather than the search for truth.

Now, rather than a protagonist, the "I" of the chronicler is the vantage point, which undoubtedly embodies an inevitable bias.

It is known that when one narrates, it is done from discourse and supported by unsuspected stories, wounds, dominations, subterranean plots and servitudes. This is why all writing is an edited version of reality. However, it is also a system of subjection which is why there is intentionality in every writer. We must therefore understand that not all writing is true and not everything that passes through the filter of the narrator's self is necessarily false.

Gabo versus Vargas Llosa

We accept, as readers or critics, these inventions, and it would seem as if the display of the talents of these masters were sufficient excuse to forgive them for inventing characters, scenes or dialogues. It is as if the mere use of stylish writing, from the outset, implied the impartiality of this author before the facts.

The opposing sides have been captained by two of our Nobel Prize winners: Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. Both brilliant novelists and journalists, but with completely opposing ideologies and ideas (on nonfiction and literary creation).

For Vargas Llosa, journalism is not comparable to literature. For him, freedom of the press is the reflection of a healthy democracy, and therefore "the supreme value of journalism is in its veracity". He considers that the pact of truthfulness with the reader is the very essence of the genre, a frontier whose creators should respect. Therefore, the journalist "cannot take refuge in pure fantasy, must not confuse reality with fiction. The press must be objective, conform to the facts and systematically seek the truth."

Other authors share this same vision: Timothy Garton Ash, Salman Rushdie and Jack Shafer. It is a commitment to the reader that is not only possible to maintain, but indispensable. For the Peruvian, there is room for a certain subjectivity in the press, as long as the context leaves no room for doubt. For example, an opinion column or a review.

These ideas contrast with those of García Márquez and other authors, including Capote, Wolfe and Mailer.

In 1998 García Márquez said in an interview: "I would say that I came to journalism because I considered that the issue was not literature, the issue was to tell things. And that within that conception, journalism must be considered a literary genre, especially reportage. It's a fight I'm waging because journalists themselves refuse to accept that reportage is a literary genre. Deep in their souls, they even regard it with a certain contempt. And, I would say one thing, reportage is a story totally based on reality. 
(...)
"No fiction is totally invented. They are always elaborations of experiences. So, by the same way in which I came to journalism I realize that this same process is another stage of my learning, not say literary, but the development of my ultimate vocation to tell things."

This defence of Gabo favours form over real data. It is therefore necessary to be clear about terms and definitions. "That a thing is true does not mean that it is convincing, neither in life nor art," Truman Capote would say. But the truth is that today, no publishing house would have published his book 'In Cold Blood' due to the safeguarding conditions of American journalism. It is known for the efficiency of its system of "verifying" each line published, the result of many cases of lies dressed up as if they were excellent reports: Janet Cooke, Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, to name but a few.

But there are authors who respected the journalistic heritage, who were in fact the instigators of investigative journalism: Upton Sinclair (in The Jungle), Larisa Reissner (in Hamburg on the Barricades) and Jhon Reed (in War in Paterson).

For his part, Carlos Monsiváis ventured into essays, ethnographic descriptions and sociological constructions in his texts, but his great merit is that he did not invent things. It is true that Rodolfo Walsh's 'Operation Massacre' came long before Capote's 'In Cold Blood' and that it is the precurser in Latin America of the New Journalism. But where did Walsh find the inspiration for his beautifully constructed dialogues?

The K case.

Ryszard Kapuściński, the famous Polish columnist, said in an interview several years ago:

"True journalism is intentional, namely journalism that sets itself an objective and tries to bring about some kind of change. There is no other journalism possible. I'm talking, obviously, about good journalism."

(...)

"The collective suicide in Guyana, when Reverend Jones induced the death of four hundred of his faithful. (...) I was there. The story made a great impression on me. My duty, if not my objectivity, urged me to tell how and, above all, why they had behaved in that way. To unmask the motives that led them to self-immolation, to denounce them, to prevent them from repeating themselves. Do you know where the struggle for objectivity of the American special envoys ended? Well, in knowing whether they had repatriated 409 coffins or only 406. That was their greatest concern."

 Defenders of the form assume the impossibility of objectivity, but to modify data and facts for the sake of expression, aesthetics or persuasion, not only eliminates the boundary between journalism and literature, but treads on the toes of propaganda.

Some European critics describe writers of literary reportage as manipulators, since they will not hesitate to intensify or modify elements for the sake of persuasion and beauty, and are therefore negligent in their relation to reality.

"Kapu's" biographer, Beata Nowacka, wrote:

"It is true. Ryszard Kapuściński's journalism is magical because, being journalism, it far exceeds its limits, achieving a status of a literary work. The exceptionality of such a work has caused problems for critics who, unprepared for such an original side of reportage, were looking for exact data, precise calculations in such texts. Instead, they came across a magical world of operetta kingdoms, as if drawn from the medieval darkness, with a world of corridors furrowed by an icy air, and mighty trees inhabited at night by witches. Thus, it is not surprising that some critics were infuriated by such a representation of the world in a reportage, a genre until then informative". (SERRALLER CALVO, 2015). In short: we are not prepared to accept that so much beauty is possible in journalism.

However, Kapuściński is today criticised for having insufficient knowledge of Africa, evident, it seems, in 'The Emperor'. He is also accused of inventing aspects of the life of Haile Selassie (the last monarch of Ethiopia). In this book, the dictator had an immense library filled with volumes dedicated only to his life, a fact later found to be fictitious.

For writer Sergio González Rodríguez, introducing these fictional elements to his reports does not detract from the interest or importance of Kapuściński's texts. "One of the great renovators of international journalism, through his work of recovering the quality of storytelling over and above the simple reporting of facts. His work involves the creation of a narrative of a humanist nature that will influence the practice of the written press, particularly in Latin America and the Spanish language."

(...)

"More than manipulation, one could speak of a literary resource to achieve his goal of transmitting such distant and different realities. I do not know the extent of his lies (...). In any case, much of his legacy will remain."

Norman Mailer, for his part, wrote in 'A Spectral Art':

"To expect a journalist to be faithful to the precise detail of the event is akin to sentimentality...A nation that forms detailed opinions on the basis of detailed facts that are modelled from subtle reality becomes a nation of citizens whose psyches have been modelled, article by article, far removed from any reality." To top it all off, he argues forcefully: "Objective information is a myth. The reader has the right to be aware of the inclinations of the man or woman who claims to be that impostor par excellence, the honest and accurate journalist."

So, should we trust that what these authors tell are verifiable facts? But which reader actually checks?

It is difficult to know which of the two positions is more honest with reality. The proponents of invention venerate their truth, but taking it as reality in absolute terms is as fascinating as it is dangerous and impoverishing for public opinion.

Style versus information

It is indisputable that style is one thing and information another; but everything seems to indicate that the columnist either confuses them involuntarily or voluntarily uses confusion.

Why is García Márquez forgiven for inventing situations, anecdotes or characters in certain journalistic pieces?

Between September and October 1954 he published in El Espectador four reports in a series entitled 'El Chocó que Colombia desconoce'. Rojas Pinilla wanted to divide up El Chocó among neighbouring departments, which provoked an unprecedented demonstration in the region. Gabo stated in several interviews that had it not been for this work of journalism Colombia would not have set its sights on this region.

He is also forgiven for inventing characters. Tomas Eloy Martinez wrote: "The great chronicles of those founding years were born under the protection of a reality that was being created as it was being written. The La Mariposa dam was about to dry up, and instead of telling it like that, with those algebraic words, García Márquez invented a character who, in order to shave in the city without water, wet his face with peach juice. The dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez was falling apart, and in order not to tell the story as in the telegrams of the news agencies, the young narrator of La hojarasca explained that, for the men of the resistance, "the days were numbered". Enriched by the language of a novel, transfigured into literature, journalism brought to life for the reader a reality even more vivid than that of cinema. Everything seemed so new, it was as though after a long oblivion, things could be named for the first time."

 These semi-fictionalised reports were published in the magazine Momento in Caracas, all of them to some extent politically motivated. This is demonstrated by the text El clero en la lucha, written a week after the fall of Pérez Jiménez. A "canonical" piece, according to many, in that it shows the how the church was involved in the overthrow with the participation of the archbishop of Caracas.

It is therefore not surprising that today many readers find it remarkable that in his book 'Fear and loathing in Las Vegas', Hunter S. Thompson has invented the situation of drugging the entire crew and passengers of the presidential plane in the Nixon campaign.

Suppose people read columns

As a borderline genre, suspended between literature and journalism, the column draws heavily on both. But come on, let's take things one step at a time: when did the discussion about the difference between genres end? We only discuss this difference when some editor is caught out in a publication, but then the matter is forgotten.

Today there are authors who demand manuals for writing columns, since this dialectic between journalism and literature can lead us to a sterile subjectivism that assures that the only reality is the one we are aware of. If we defend veracity from its very root, we would not be able to talk about anything. On the other hand, if we say that there is no such thing as truth, then relativism can legitimize cold manipulation and falsehood.

On the subject, the writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II, made his defense in one of his many workshops, saying: "Purists are assholes by definition, because to be a purist in a world like this...seriously! You obviously have nothing better to do. Today we must be suspicious of such flimsy defenses. If you invent, it's fiction. One cannot pretend that with inventions one can describe social processes, legislative shortcomings, the vulnerable situations of certain human populations, or the denunciation of a crime in order to demonstrate the emptiness of a law.

In Colombia there are numbers that are maintained, but they are few and there is very little scope foe the publication of columns. Despite this, a great majority of aspiring writers want to become columnists, despite the many inadequacies in journalistic training. Future journalists must be made aware that column writing is a privilege granted to few.

There is a press network that is eminently local and that employs half the journalists in Latin America. There are countries where it is more dense: Argentina and Mexico. Between them they have 267 magazines and 480 registered newspapers, 334 of which are dailies, but the vast majority are local or regional. The opposite extreme is Venezuela, where there is only one regional newspaper. I know, off the record, of cases of journalists with impeccably researched papers that are returned by publishers with the suggestion that they turn them into a column. I know of works of importance that won't win journalism awards because they don't have the packaging or material of novelistic reportage.

One of the few moments of courage seen in recent years to accept that crossing this invisible line is tricky occurred with Gay Talese's The Voyeur's Motel. The book was about the confessions of a voyeur (Gerald Foos) who for over 20 years was dedicated to spying on guests at a motel he owned. However, as the book was about to appear in the United States, the Washington Post revealed that the establishment had not belonged to Foos during the 1980s. Talese announced that he would not endorse the book because Foos' credibility had "gone down the drain." He was courageous enough to demonstrate that journalism cannot be done with lies.

Never has the creative pact between reader and journalist, which requires that everything you tell me must be absolutely true, been more threatened than right now.

That is why it is necessary to return to the discussion because I have noticed, not infrequently, that the debate is no longer important in some schools and faculties of journalism where "schoolboy" and superficial notions of chronicle prevail. I do not see the new generation showing any interest, even less do I see the issue being discussed in journalistic and academic circles.

I have seen that the issue is easily solved. It is also a deontological (ethical) issue, a neglected aspect in today's journalism and communication training.

Journalism is a human activity whose supreme value is precision, concreteness with the purpose that these are guarantors of impartiality and informative rigour. "We need information to live our own lives, to protect ourselves, to establish links, to identify friends and enemies. Journalism is nothing more than the system that society has created to provide us with that information (KOVACH & ROSENSTIEL).

Meanwhile, the two sides are not even under discussion, and it would seem that the debate is already over. But its discussion has greater importance today because of the technosphere in which we live and the "fake news" that surrounds us (an example of this are the countless lies spread during the pandemic), and on the other hand, the heated polarizations of our reality. We must discuss it, otherwise we will find ourselves defending the perpetrators and brandishing the victims.