To explain, is to inform

Jay Rosen teaches journalism at NYU, and is a key figure in the American journalism blogosphere. His blog, PressThink, has recorded over two million visitors since 2007, and he also runs NewAssignment.net, an “open-source”, civic journalism website. Really interesting stuff.
This post is about the need for explanation in journalism to preface information- not the other way around. He notes NPR’s This American Life as running one of the most successful pieces of “explanatory” journalism, called The Giant Pool of Money, on the mortgage crisis in the U.S.
“Coming out of the program, I understood the complete scam: what happened, why it happened, and why I should care,” writes Rosen.
Pretty straightforward. The way journalism should be?