How do newspapers elucidate the motivations of politicians/countries?

Question

(Not sure if this should be on the meta)

Here's an example of what I'm referring to:

A United States ally, South Korea has maintained it would not provide Ukraine with lethal aid and has sought to avoid antagonising Russia, both for economic reasons and the influence Moscow can exert over North Korea.

I can imagine a question on "why has South Korea not provided Ukraine with lethal aid?" getting closed because "answers would be based on speculation and their correctness could not be verified with sources available to the public." The exception would be if a South Korean official had actually said these are the reasons, which seems very improbable given the sensitivity of the reasons.

Given that, how can Al-Jazeera possibly know why South Korea made this decision?

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 28 '22 at 06:59

4

Journalists have access to politicians that others don't. This is both in formal "press briefings" and informal "meet me in the bar and I'll talk off the record" contexts. That is, journalists have access to sources that are not available to the public.

And, of course, journalists dress up speculation as fact; they might put two and two together, or they might read between the lines. They should be better at reading between the lines than a random member of the public, since they are experts.

It may be impossible to tell what is "expert speculation" and what is "off-the-record briefing"

answered Oct 28 '22 at 06:59

James K

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Related question: What does it mean to be "On the record", and why does it matter? – Philipp Oct 28 '22 at 08:56
Hmm if they got the information from a politician speaking off the record, wouldn't they say something like "a South Korean politician who requested anonymity said ..." ? – Allure Oct 28 '22 at 11:24
They might, or might not. I think this is more likely to be "expert opinion". But if they were briefed they may prefer not to admit to having a source. – James K Oct 28 '22 at 12:02
@Allure It may depend on the government being reported on. We get lots of "unnamed sources" from the US government, because severe retaliation is not likely if they get exposed. But the same cannot be said about authoritarian regimes like N.Korea and Russia. – Barmar Oct 28 '22 at 15:06

How do newspapers elucidate the motivations of politicians/countries?

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