La cobertura periodística de los incendios de Galicia y Portugal de octubre de 2017: un análisis de la información de emergencia de diarios portugueses, españoles y gallegos

Abstract

The wildfires that affected Galicia and Portugal in October the 15 th and 16 th of 2017 were a challenge for the media coverage, which should offer a useful information for the citizens in an emergency situation as part of its mission of public service. This pa per analyzes the informative coverage of six Portu- guese, Galician and Spanish newspapers during the days of the crisis in order to highlight the observance of the suggestions that the Colexio Profesional de Xornalistas de Galicia [Association of Professional Journalists of Galicia] published in its Guía práctica para o tratamento informativo de emerxencias, catástrofes e persoas desaparecidas [Practical guide for the informative coverage of emergencies, catastrophes and missing people] and its Decálogo de recomendacións para medios e xornalistas de sucesos de catástrofe [Rules and suggestions for media and journalists for news of catastrophes]. The news published by Público, Jornal de Notícias, Faro de Vigo, La Voz de Galicia, El País and El Mundo fulfill most of the suggestions. Nonetheless these stories fall into certain forms of informative sensationalism, and do not generally include declarations of scientific sources, that could improve the contextualization of the facts.