A RESERVOIR OF UNDERSTANDING

Abstract

The article demonstrates that history is not only a legitimate but a necessary field of reporting which is becoming more and more important for journalism if the profession is to survive the challenges to its continuance from changes caused by the digital upheaval. There are five steps in argumentation: the first reconstructs the present transformation of journalism from the news function to the orientation function and identifies history as a reservoir of potential knowledge which enables an orientation in the present. This can be done by observing the present as a contrast to the past (critical mode), by looking out for similarities between the present and the past (analogical mode) or by reconstructing the present as something which has developed from the past (genetic mode). The following paragraphs concentrate on each of these three possible modes in which journalists can connect historical material to the present and thus do justice to the rules of topicality. This is demonstrated by examples of how the National Socialist past is and can be treated. The fifth step asks if journalists should trust themselves to interpret historical events. Here, it should not be forgotten that the choice of facts already implies an interpretation.

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