The newspaper La Vanguardia presented its new Book of essay at the University of Navarra. The event was attended by the newspaper's reader's advocate, Josep María Casassús; the editor-in-chief, Magí Camps; and the scientific advisor of publishing house Ariel, Javier Paredes. The School of Communication was represented by Professor Fernando López Pan.

According to the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, the book has been developed from the cases and doubts that have arisen in essay. "It is born from the internship and not from theory. Therefore, it does not pretend to be a guide of journalism, but a book that gathers basic rules that the journalist must take into account to develop his work, both for those who obey and for those who command", he pointed out. For Magí Camps, this work "is not a tool of censorship that the editor has to learn it from report, but it should serve to become aware of the language", he said.

A state-of-the-art book

The publication was born eighteen years after the then editor José Casán drew up a style guide based on casuistry. It contained the first rules of style of La Vanguardia. The second experience was in 1986 when the first Book of essay was published. "It was an experimental edition, but it was only for internal use," explained Josep María Casassús.

The new work is structured in three blocks. The first analyzes the deontological aspects of the profession, as well as the main rules of style, the treatment of sources, and reviews the different journalistic genres. As a novelty, it deals with informative and ethical aspects related to infographics and photography, which makes it, according to Casassús, "a response to the latest generation of what are called style books". The second part tries to solve the doubts that the editor encounters in his daily work, with entries that have been ordered alphabetically. The use of capital letters, which terms should be written in italics, the training of the plural in foreign words and many other aspects are analyzed in this section. Finally, the third block contains more than 4,600 toponyms and gentilisms from all over the world.