The likelihood and pragmatism in the accounts of the press on politics

Abstract

In my present doctoral research on emergency and fall of leaders of the Justicialista Party of Salta (Argentina), I observe accounts of the graphic press that describe events of the political dynamics taking into descriptions gossip, rumors and confidences obtained from interactions mediated by the trust and intimacy with leaders, civil servants and workers close to local leaders. Although those rumours and confidences cannot be verified, the credibility of the information, for writers and journalists, is also supported by trust. However, the analysis and interpretation of the information construct veracity from the verisimilitude . The proximity of the description with that dominant view that considers politics as an activity devoid of values, whose pragmatism contrasts with the politics of ideals, allows to achieve such verisimilitude. Thus, the most effective descriptions in the valuation of the political calcullation, strategy and interests of those who are involved - with evidences of political gestures in solidarity to that estimate - would be the closest to the ‘real’ facts. However, this adjustments of interests over values offers a direction when considering these accounts as sources, because it overshadows those moral orientations which, as other studies indicate, would be very spread among the leaders of peronismo.