Why analysis matters

I am a journalist… I think. I have been a desk guy most of my professional life (14+ years). In this time, I have commissioned and published hundreds of pieces, from news reports to investigative features, from explainers to commentary. However, I myself am more of an essayist — and even then an essayist of big ideas rather than ground realities. For a recent piece I wrote about David Attenborough — which discussed fortress conservation and violence against Indigenous peoples, even though I have never been in the ‘field’ the way an ecologist or a reporter has — I received an unexpectedly large volume of positive feedback. Thus far, I have written pieces of this nature because I have had something to say, not necessarily because someone could have benefited from reading it. But if I had to think about that beforehand, how would I go about it? As I was pondering this, I started to have some ideas about how the two kinds of journalistic reports on my mind — those written based on…