I think we'd first have to find common ground on what the purpose of a free press is. In my opinion the goal is to have informed citizens that can have informed participation in the democratic decision-making process.

For that, we not only have to know the what, but also the why behind a news item. We have to know the relationships between things.

So while we can't indeed can't explain everything completely, that doesn't mean we can't explain anything.

In hindsight the drought/global warming example is bad because there can indeed be another reason for the ocurrence, but even telling multiple possible reasons (e.g. by asking an expert) makes the news item more insightful than any context at all.

> This is a circular problem.

Yes, that was my point! There is no arbitrary threshold where we could stop referring to things happening in the past and get unbiased news.

Or yet another example: The current debate around minimum wage increases. The news could simply state the positions of the two parties, and the current nominal number of $7.25. But that wouldn't make this unbiased, because the $7.25 at inception had a different purchasing power than now. And a different ratio to GPD per capita. Thus omitting this context skews the news item towards the side that is against an increase. But adding the context favors the side that is for the increase.