On Oct. 2, 2016, against all predictions, Colombian voters rejected a proposed peace deal with FARC rebels that would have marked the end of a 50-year-old internal conflict. Similar to what happened after the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's election in the United States that same year, the unexpected results of the Colombian peace referendum resulted in a wave of media criticism. This study examines this body of criticism in the Colombian case through qualitative, critical thematic analysis of published media criticism that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the vote and semi-directed interviews with Colombian journalists who personally covered the referendum. The findings show that a metajournalistic discourse of media failure materialized following the vote, with potential implications for the local journalistic culture. Three dimensions are identified in the journalists' responses to this discourse. They acknowledge that errors and poor journalistic habits were present in the vote's coverage; they push back by identifying external pressures to journalism that caused systemic media failures; and they speak with ambivalence about persisting journalistic practices and norms, showing willingness to revisit some of them in their own practice. A discussion based on the findings links theoretical scholarship on the Brexit and Trump's cases to the Colombian vote by showing that the experience of covering the referendum, and the ensuing criticism that the media sustained, opened the door for journalists to engage in a debate over the merits of objectivity, just like the two other cases did in their respective contexts. A situated analysis that takes into account the local context of Colombia's journalistic culture proposes new angles to this debate. It suggests that internal changes in that culture, such as the demise of an organization that used to champion peace activism in journalism, has resulted in changes to how journalists understand and apply the objectivity norm when covering matters of conflict and peace. This raises the question of whether material conditions in any given journalistic context may influence how journalists understand and apply objectivity, thus contributing new insights to the ongoing debate on the merits of this norm not just in the Colombian context but globally as well.

École de style, espace de mémoire et de réflexion, champ d’expérimentation de formes narratives, l'œuvre journalistique de Gabriel García Márquez affiche une indéniable ambition littéraire tout en gardant une valeur documentaire. En examinant les chroniques des Notas de Prensa 1980-84 et le reportage Noticia de un secuestro (1996), un constat général se dégage : la tentative de conversion esthétique que l'on trouve dans ces ouvrages vient confirmer ce qui était déjà une évidence dans la période initiale (1948-1961), la consolidation d'un espace singulier dans son œuvre se rapprochant de façon subsidiaire et non subalterne de ses travaux proprement littéraires. Cette recherche fusionnelle marque définitivement son reportage, car c'est dans ce domaine que l'investissement de la matière documentaire confine à la forme romanesque. Le facteur immuable du style serait la clé expliquant cette transposition des recours rhétoriques et narratifs dans la non-fiction. Par ce biais les échanges entre les deux domaines de son écriture s'avèrent plutôt fructueux; à terme, tous deux ciblent une vision poétique de la réalité et valident indépendamment leurs procédures de représentation. Mais cette tendance convergente n'est pas toujours exempte de zones de tension, surtout lorsque l'auteur se permet quelques écarts fictionnels dans ses chroniques. En revanche, dans le reportage qui se veut écrit comme un roman, la correspondance stricte avec l'enquête devient un impératif grandissant. Ainsi, son journalisme joue un rôle précurseur dans la presse colombienne tout en rejoignant un courant universel. / A stylistic school, a vehicle for recollection and reflection, an experimental field with narrative forms, Gabriel García Márquez’s journalistic works are characterised by both an undeniable literary ambition and genuine documentary value. An examination of the columns, Notas de Prensa 1980-84, and the reportage, Noticia de un secuestro [1996], leads to the following finding: the attempt at aesthetic transformation that runs throughout these works confirms what was already obvious in the initial period (1948-1961), the consolidation of a singular level in his work that approaches in a subsidiary but not subordinate manner his literary works proper. This quest can be seen definitively in all his reportage work, the area in which the approach to the documentary material borders on that of the novel form. The key to this transposition of rhetorical and narrative recourse to non-fiction would appear to be found in the style –its inalterable nature. It is in this way that the interplay between the two fields of his writing proves to be so rich; both ultimately strive for a poetical vision of reality and they independently validate their representative processes. However, this converging trend also contains some areas of tension, not least of which when the author allows himself to digress in his columns into what is nothing less than a brief sketch of a fictional work. In contrast, in the reportage intended to be written as a novel, a strict adherence to the investigation itself becomes increasingly crucial. It is in this way that his journalism can be seen as both a precursor in the Colombian press and as part of a universal current.