Explanatory Journalism, Unexplainedand Unendorsed

By ANDREW YUAN ’24

If you have surfed YouTube in the past few years, you probably have watched a video with one of these titles: “The Israel-Palestine Conflict: a brief, simple history,” “The Middle East’s Cold War, Explained,” or “How America Became a Superpower.” Until recently, I always supported and almost instantly clicked on these videos whenever they came out.

These videos all shared a commonality: they were written, produced, and popularized by one media giant: Vox. When the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein founded Vox in 2014, Vox represented a fresh breeze of journalism without excessive commentary or clashing political debates before your television screens. It was accessible through YouTube, free of charge, entertaining, and most importantly, explanatory. Instead of having to listen to endless debates from pundits who would hardly agree with each other on any public policy, Vox handed their audience a simple course of political and historical narrative behind a conflict, political controversy, or intriguing social phenomenon.

Of course, Vox didn’t appeal to everyone. Its YouTube platform and online-only publication guaranteed that it would attract a relatively young population. Many of its videos commenting on American politics adopted a liberal and even progressive stance that naturally alienated conservative viewers. Yet to the left-wing and centrist audience, Vox was a visually enticing multimedia alternative to long Op-Eds and subscription fees of old-school journalism.

After a few years, Vox expanded its videojournalism section from public policy to culture, history, science, sports, design, geopolitics, technology, environment, communications, and health. In 2015, Vox acquired its competitor Recode, a journalistic startup specialized in technology and business reporting. In the following years of expansion, Vox would acquire Polygon, Eater, and New York Magazine.

From 2016 to 2021, Vox’s YouTube channel alone grew from one million subscribers to 10 million, surpassing that of the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News. Its documentary series and explanatory videos gained not only praise from journalistic critics but also recognition from the entertainment industry such as the Emmys.

So you might ask: what is the problem with this successful and rejuvenating website?

Vox’s success depends on its explanatory journalism. Yet instead of detailing the opposing views and narratives that citizens of different political interests might take based on selective evidence, Vox introduces one explanation that it holds as “correct” and labels it as journalism, not commentary.

Explanatory journalism is a simple answer to many of the world’s dire problems, yet I hardly doubt that any president would make a call in the Situation Room based on suggestions from a 10-minute Vox video. The flaw of explanatory journalism lies in its own wording: can one really explain the rise and fall of ISIS or the conflict in Kashmir in 10 minutes without presenting an ample amount of secondary and primary accounts?

Though sometimes perceived as boring or politically divisive, the aggressive bickering from pundits of contrasting stances on CNN is a relieving sign that our political discourse has not yet been dictated by a unified voice. The rise of Vox and its seemingly innocuous offer of a direct solution threatens our innate ability of judgment. Particularly for its less biased videos on foreign policy that both Republicans and Democrats are willing to watch, such a danger becomes more significant than ever.

To arrive at a simple conclusion, Vox sometimes singularizes a global conflict down to one experience, one voice. For its video on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Vox followed up its coverage with a video “Why Israeli settlements Don’t Feel like a Conflict Zone,” depicting Israeli settlements as peaceful, utopic, and synonymous with American suburbs. Left out of that narrative were the harsh conditions of Palestine and constant missile strikes in the region from both sides.

Explanatory journalism’s same reliance on a selective representation also takes away the important groundwork traditional media outlets accomplish. This is not to deny that Vox journalists also visited conflict areas, but Vox’s push for a singularity of narrative neglects the work of reporters in VICE, Washington Post, or CNN attempting to diversify the narrative on a controversial event.

At the end of the day, the model upon which explanatory journalism operates is not much different from the system of the pundits: they find a few examples, cherry pick evidence that supports them, and craft an idealistic answer to a realistic problem. But pundits let the audience know that they come with a political agenda while Vox labels itself as correct and reliable.

Vox’s expansion of its journalistic coverage has caused some unforeseeable repercussions. Coupled with its use of explanatory journalism, Vox began to explain history: the transformation of political parties, the rise of American imperialism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Again, perspective is important. Vox made efforts to include a more coherent and diversified narrative in its historical explanations. Yet out of all the subjects Vox decided to explain, history is possibly the most difficult one to achieve a conclusion at. Each decision in history is compounded by historical context, political motivations, ulterior motives, and personal beliefs. To rationalize one decision in 10 minutes is difficult enough, not to mention explaining hundreds of years of history. One can summarize history, but analyzing it requires tremendous effort.

Then came Johnny Harris.

You may or may not know him from the viral video “The REAL Reason McDonalds Ice Cream Machines Are Always Broken,” his passion for maps as modes of explanation, or his Emmy-nominated “Borders” Series.

Prior to becoming an independent journalist, Harris worked for Vox and produced the “Borders” Series, traveling around the world and documenting varying scenarios at borders. Overall, Harris was genuine in his narration, provided contrasting perspectives in his videos, and refrained from too much patronizing explanation. When the pandemic came, Harris resigned from Vox, and “Borders” was canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Harris began his career as an independent journalist on YouTube, observing and investigating intriguing cultural trends and geographical anomalies. Much like his former employer Vox, Harris began a similar style of expansion into politics, business, and…history.

For a time, Harris proved that independent journalists could succeed without relying on a powerful media organization or mogul. He started investigative work on corporate greed, heart-wrenching Op-Eds on his personal struggles in the Mormon Church, and criticism of media misogyny towards Janet Jackson in the Super Bowl XXXVIII Halftime Show.

Then, the tides began to turn. Harris became more reliant upon internet memes, click-baiting titles, and unnecessarily prolific map uses in his videos. While he continued investigative journalism, he established a business website offering services on video editing. As his YouTube total views broke 100 million, Harris transformed from a dedicated video journalist to a YouTube celebrity.

His video on European colonialism, “How Europe Stole the World,” became the last straw.

There he was: Harris, a video journalist with no degree in history or European studies, painting Renaissance Europe as “miserable” and its people as “farmers who had nothing.” Whether or not Europe was in a dark place is indeed up to interpretation. But some obvious mistakes in his reference to European history cannot be overlooked, such as his claim that the Portuguese began the age of navigation before Spain and Columbus’s “realization that there was no resistance” from indigenous people.

Backlash erupted on YouTube and blogs, criticizing Harris for his lack of citations and bias in storytelling. Some went as far as to label his journalism as “YouTube propaganda.” While Harris criticizes both political spectra in his videos with no clear political agenda, the merits in these criticisms hold true for not only Harris but also the entirety of explanatory journalism.

Harris became the sole victim of this suddenly realized disapproval of explanatory journalism. Yet years of build-up and the rise of explanatory journalism lie behind his blunder. Vox gave birth to this flawed platform and monetized on it for years, Harris just learned from his old bosses.

At the same time, we are to blame for the rise of explanatory journalism too. When Harris sincerely promoted his four-part investigative series on Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus, that video series achieved only an average of 1.2 million views per episode, far less than most of his explanatory videos. For that series, Harris went to Cyprus as the first abroad investigative trip he made after becoming an independent journalist.

Instead of reading articles on Foreign Policy, written by former White House advisors or watching a YouTube Channel, such as Historia Civilis, that actually cites their sources, we rely on Johnny Harris and Vox’s 10-minute videos to understand modern conflicts and historical events. Then, we go on and tell others how informative their videos are. The cycle of our ignorant understanding goes on and on and on.

If Harris had just added “Op-Ed’” in front of “How Europe Stole the World,” I would not be so outraged. We know Harris as a reliable journalist from his past work and his candid personality, we take their accounts as the only narrative, as the explained truths. When traditional journalism operated based on complete partiality or impartiality, Harris chose an irresponsible perspective, labeling partiality as an impartiality.

Harris recently won an Emmy for his Op-Ed video collaboration with the NYTimes criticizing the hypocrisy of Democrats advocating for affordable housing yet making the minimal legislative effort to fulfill their promises in blue states. I’m glad it was his Op-Ed, not one of the videos on his own channel, that won the award. It is time for explanatory journalism to die, not to rise emboldened in the entertainment industry’s applause.

Then, a few questions come into mind: if Johnny Harris won an Emmy for an NYTimes video collaboration but not a video on his own YouTube channel, is he relying his success on established journalistic networks? Doesn’t the Emmys’ selection prove Harris’ work as an independent journalist an ironic futility? Is the future of independent journalism, without corporate funding or resources, just explanatory videos spreading misinformation with catchy titles?

I do not attempt to answer these questions or fix the dispute around explanatory journalism. But hey, this is an Op-Ed, and I’m only expressing my opinion here, unexplained, unendorsed. See, perspective?