When reporting something in the news, there exists, to the journalist doing the reporting, both the benefit of hindsight and the ability, based on their research, to surmise where and to what end the topic may lead. Journalistic research not only yields context to both an audience and author, but a greater understanding of a thing in real time, over time.
I’m making a leap here, but I don’t think I’m out of bounds in saying the following: Scientific research brings about the same levels of both niche and generalized understanding, both of the past and future, and any number of direct parallels between journalism and science can be drawn, case-by-case, even for the most topical of news articles, particularly when you’re talking about the methodology.
So, then—why wouldn’t everything known about the past and everything surmised about the future be disclosed in journalism? What would prevent it?
When you read a scientific article, much of the history of the broader field or even particular avenue of study isn’t going to be mentioned, because it’s taken for granted that the readers already know it. Sure, any reader will find a concise summation of the current knowledge of the area in the Introduction, but the deep history is almost entirely absent. Aside from the already-educated readership, some reasons for this include the conferring of titles onto students in universities, which is a big business, as it brings those universities a lot of money in various forms via tuition, and also brings the conferee and university for which they later work clout and further grant money, and so one must seek private education to understand the history, and from there gain employment and teach and research, and the system has its commodity all locked up. Then there’s the selling of textbooks: also a big business.
But word space is the main reason for such brevity. Scientific magazines have sprouted up, fortunately—and so have YouTube channels and social media accounts, since—to help laypeople understand the more difficult or esoteric aspects of whatever branch of science they’re curious about, so there’s really no need to read the results of any article.
When it comes to politics, however, who you find providing the most accessible explanations are the big newspapers and networks—The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and so on.
A suitable, representational metaphor here would be a plinth with the bust of the Roman god Janus, looking both forward and back. But, in journalism, the head turned in retrograde is often darkened, or blindfolded.
Journalists do research. Sometimes their own limitations halt them at certain figurative depths of probing a story, but often they stop because they’re told to stop, because they’re told to report this much and nothing more. Such has become the standard today in unbiased journalism. But in a field as ubiquitous and valuable to public information, why might such limits need to be placed? Aside from brevity, what other reasons might there be for the prevention of full disclosure and historical context of a domestic or global issue in the news—social, political, economic, etc.—originating from the desks, bureaus, producers and sometimes-contributors of those media outlets?
Because mass media is a collective of large-scale, private businesses. An industry, like all others.
Take any company, selling a product. There’s not a globally-produced product in the world that doesn’t in some way do some form of harm to its employees, consumers, local residents or the ecosystems they all rely on, near and far. Products produced on such scales as those present in modern-day industry always produce toxic or otherwise noxious waste (e.g., energy, chemical, automobile, general manufacturing); require finite resources to maintain (e.g., fossil fuels, airlines, auto, mining); require manipulations and changes to the land for growth/production that harm the natural environment (e.g., cattle-farming, textile, fruit-and-cereal-crops, lumber, chemical); require appropriation of taxpayer money for what amounts to select, narrow and often self-serving interests (e.g. defense; market protections/financial bailouts); and require cheap or exploited labor to maintain high profit margins for the ownership (e.g., apparel, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, etc.).
What, then, would be the difference in the companies that constitute mass media and things they produce? Although the end products of media are different than other, more tangible goods, they are still goods generated for large-scale public consumption. And the multi-million-dollar conglomerates within the billion-dollar industry that contains them profit greatly. Primarily through advertising and the selling of shares on the stock market.
The difference, then, would be slight. Just as any industry leader would never want it to get out publicly just how much their products harm the world before, during and after production, the industry of mass media wouldn’t want that same public to know the historical context of the social/political/global/military issues or maneuvers they report on. The greater the market capitalization (total worth without subtracting liabilities) of a company, the more a vested interest there is in business-as-usual practices, without any kind of public, governmental or watchdog intervention that might affect the bottom line (worth after subtracting liabilities). And, since the news industry has a hand in potentially revealing the behind-the-scenes practices of most industry leaders, it would feel the harm, too, through systemic financial reverberations and its connectivity to the market, all via the possible outcries and outrage of a more-enlightened public.
Assuming a certain level of morality, the more a money-tendering public knows about the largest of industries and their existentially harmful nature, the less likely they are to invest any capital in those industries, from the level of retail consumption all the way up to stock ownership.
The same rule applies for all industries. Even the news. Your secret is our secret is everyone’s secret.
In short (tl;dr): Money talks, bullshit walks. If money is what you rely on to exist, or if you benefit greatly through your close connection to a profitable company or industry—politician, lobbyist, academic, economist, pundit, major investor—it’s in your best interests to not reveal any of the foul bullshit you manifest or represent to the pluralities who provide your financial support. Otherwise, they will likely support others who don’t, or who generate less.
