Banesco publishes the book 70 years of opinion articles in Venezuela

Banesco Banco Universal – whose corporate social responsibility policy has as its pillars the promotion of education, health and financial inclusion of Venezuelans- and the cyngular publishing house They published the book 70 years of opinion articles in VenezuelaTitle number 13 of the Journalism collection of the Banesco Digital Library.

The book was edited by Sergio Dahbar and Carlos Ortizwho did an arduous documentation process to get pieces written by national articles from the 50s to 2022. The presentation was held on April 3, 2025 at the Fernando Crespo Suñer Auditorium in Banesco City.

Marco Tulio Ortega Vargas, president of the Board of Directors of Banesco Banco Universal, highlighted the value of this publication: “Great writers, great journalists, economists, poets, philosophers, art critics, priests, politicians … All are building a swarm to tell the country we had during these seven decades (…) We recognize that this book is a fresco of Venezuelan life of the last 70 years, in the voices of public characters. This title comes to consolidate the review of the traditional journalistic genres that we offer in this collection. A great collection for students, researchers and all that curious who wants to get a little closer to this Venezuela that we live. ”

In this book there are articles by Arturo Uslar Pietri, Guillermo Meneses, Romulo Betancourtor a story by Enriqueta Arvelo Larriva about the return to Venezuela by Romulo Gallegos, without the Nobel. Also by Miguel Otero Silva, Federico Álvarez, José Ignacio Cabrujas, Colette Capriles, Gioconda Espina, Marta Colomina, Inés Quintero, among many others.

The book 70 years of opinion articles in Venezuela is available for free download in the Banesco Digital Library.

A luxury presentation

The presentation format 70 years of opinion articles in Venezuela It was also a novelty, in the tradition of publications baptisms, which usually frames the new titles of the Banesco Digital Library.

On this occasion, journalist Aymara Lorenzo interviewed her podcast With the ear in the letter To Sergio Dahbar. This conversation was conducted live, in the Fernando Crespo Suñer Auditorium in Banesco City, given the presence of all the guests.

In his speech, Dahbar made a brief tour of the origins of opinion articles: He began by the Romans in the 16th century, followed the essays of Montaigne and Francis Bacon that were of interest in the seventeenth century; Until, one hundred years later, to the opinion column in the British newspaper.

Already for the nineteenth century, The media had “a varied range of celebrities who wrote opinion” As, for example, William Ralph Inge, Randolph Churchill, Hugh Massingham, Harold Nicholson, Cyril Connolly, among others. In the region you can mention the Cuban José Martí, Rubén Darío, Enrique Gómez Carrillo and César Vallejo, the writers of the Latin American boom and journalists such as Martín Caparros, Juan Villoro, Leila Guerriero, Héctor Abad Faciolince, Alberto Barrera Tyszka.

“It was impossible for our journalistic genres library not to have a volume on opinion. The seventy years we have included start in 1954 and end in 2022. A fed up stimulating arc to measure the evolution of journalistic opinion in the country, its curious form of maturity in 88 articles, ”said Dahbar.

He added: “From one of the opinion joints he published in newspapers throughout his life, Manuel Caballero, I keep a lesson that always accompanies me. I asked him how long it took to write an article, of those who built perfectly. He replied: 30 minutes and 40 years. A wise phrase.”

For Carlos Ortiz, editor and curator, the book is a compilation of critical thinking and reflection on the events of the country between 1954 and 2022: “Readers will find a reading of the country’s history in real time, But not only opinion in the most critical sense, but also from reflection on culture, books, social phenomena in general. So that the spectrum is quite wide to what can be accessed through these articles. ”

The joints speak

Colette Capriles, political scientist and university professor: “What we are seeing is the disappearance of the common opinion space which has been replaced by the infinite multiplication of private opinions that, by becoming public, are not public opinion (…) the fragmentation of public space has terrible political consequences, we are seeing them in all parts of the world. And it also has consequences on the identity of the same society, in the way in which society represents itself. ”

Jesús María Casal, Dean of the UCAB Faculty of Law: “The opinion article is very important because it allows to respond to information needs and also to the training of public opinion live, in today. It allows you to fix quickly with clear and different ideas. It is a very specific genre because you have to go to the essence of what you want to convey. ”

Luis Ugalde, Jesuit priest, sociologist and historian: “when one reviews the contemporary history of Venezuela there are moments that begin with an article (…) In contemporary Venezuela, I imagine that books also influence, But really at that time people did not read many books, but the articles and newspapers that were also strengthened in public opinion. ”

With this new title of the Journalism of the Banesco Digital Library, The bank continues to review the journalistic office in Venezuela when addressing its genres and the country’s vision through the protagonists of journalism in the last 70 years.

Listen here to presentation of the book 70 years of opinion articles in Venezuela and look at the introduction by Sergio Dahbar to the journalism collection and his new title.

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