[Future Snake Eater]

That is, they simply change the subject when events threaten the template in which they have been cramming the news into.

That's an interesting take. I'd almost say you were wrong in your assessment if reporters did what they were supposed to do and report the news. However, they continually try to spin it to fit their view of "the way things should be." Therefore they fancy themselves as present-day historians, never really taking into account what has happened before that created the events which they are reporting.

The main reason I asked about the detaching ones self from recent history for analysis is that I've always heard that it's nearly impossible to truly analyze the effect an event has on history without at least a generation or so between the event and the analysis, otherwise your analysis would be too buried within the world created by the event (does that make sense?).

[LS]

Yah, this is an ongoing concern for historians---i.e., when is something subject for "historical" analysis. While new evidence can come out that will change an interpretation (for ex., only in 1969 was it proven that A. Jackson had really nothing to do with causing the Panic of 1837 through his policies; or only in the last coupld of years did Patricial Cornwall prove that Jack the Ripper was Walter E. Sickert, and actor/artist), as often as not, time does NOT change the intial observations.

I'm comfortable bringing things up to the present (meaning, submitted to the editor) after which time there is a several month gap between submission and editing, then still more time before publication.