Has there ever been a news story where context – that is, the events and causes leading up to present-day realities – is more important than it is in the case of race? Has there ever been a story where providing that context fairly and accurately is so complex and contested, so difficult? Has there ever been a story where, if the context is not provided, the dangers of misrepresenting reality are greater?

And yet, the most frequent criticism leveled against the news media, beginning at least with the famous Kerner Commission Report, is that coverage of race has failed to provide the consumer of mass media with the proper context. This must be an exceedingly difficult subject for journalists, for in the news business the antonym of “news” might be “context.” Clearly, though, journalists are in the news business, not the context business. In the case of race, “context,” taken to its extreme, would imply attention to social and historical forces such as the slave trade, a civil war, regional isolation and then migration, and a social movement designed to win political equality.