Things don’t happen in a vacuum. If we understand how we got here, we might see ways out of the mess we’re in. A little history adds a whole lot of context.
A historian examines old documents. (Illustration by News Decoder)
In News Decoder’s Top Tips, we share advice for young people from experts in journalism, media literacy and education. In this week’s Top Tip, News Decoder’s Educational News Director Marcy Burstiner explores how history in a story can give it context.
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To help explain what’s happening out there now, it helps to delve into the past.
That’s because, for one thing, something similar probably happened before and how that ended might help you anticipate what will happen next.
News story after news story about U.S. President Donald Trump, for instance, talks about things being unprecedented. But did you know that in the 1850s in the United States there was a political party called the Know Nothing party. It was xenophobic and a spreader of conspiracy theories. According to the writer Lorraine Boissoneault, it was anti-immigration and called for mandatory Bible readings in schools.
“At its height in the 1850s, the Know Nothing party, originally called the American Party, included more than 100 elected congressmen, eight governors, a controlling share of half-a-dozen state legislatures from Massachusetts to California and thousands of local politicians,” Boissoneault wrote.
It is important to delve into history when doing a news story because things don’t just happen. Stuff led up to what is happening now. There are causes, and causes of causes. There might be a whole link of events that led up to the calamity that is now, or the explosion that happened or the political turmoil you find yourself in.
Put events into context.
A little history in a story brings depth and context. It makes the whole story more interesting and helps people better understand what is happening now. News Decoder correspondent Gene Gibbons helped us understand the constitutional crisis the United States finds itself under Trump by looking back at a previous crisis in the 1970s under President Richard Nixon.
Correspondent Bernd Debusmann knew he couldn’t really explain the significance of the antipathy Trump now has for the European Union without explaining why the EU was formed in the first place. That meant going back to the aftermath of World War Two.
Correspondent Barry Moody helped us appreciate the triumphant win in a rugby game in South Africa by delving into the long history of apartheid and showing how rugby fit into that.
But how do you add some history? Well, you find yourself a historian. Every town has one, whether that person carries a title or not. A historian is simply someone who keeps track of past events and often documents them by collecting news stories or photographs, or by keeping journals. They might be the caretaker of archives of one kind or another.
You can also seek out professional historians. They can be found in university history departments, libraries and historical societies. Some are super specialized. I once saw a great documentary about a portrait of a woman believed to be painted by Leonardo de Vinci, and to prove it, the owner found a hair historian who found that the hairstyle of the woman was specific to a short time in history in a very small geographical area of Italy.
If you were doing a story about technology and wanted to include a bit of history you could contact the Society for the History of Technology. There are historians of politics, war, fashion, movies, food and architecture.
You can also just ask about the history of a place or event when you interview experts on what is happening now. You can’t really call yourself an expert on any topic if you don’t know its history.
So when you ask about what just happened, ask about what happened a decade or two ago, or more. Ask how things came to be the way they are. Maybe if we all understood the history of our times, history wouldn’t have to repeat itself.
Questions to consider:
1. How can history add context to a news story?
2. Where might you find a historian?
3. If you were doing a story about your town, where would you find someone knowledgeable about its history?
Marcy Burstiner is the educational news director for News Decoder. She is a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School and professor emeritus of journalism and mass communication at the California Polytechnic University, Humboldt in California. She is the author of the book "Investigative Reporting: From premise to publication."
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