Journalism is not history, and vice versa. They are different disciplines, with different goals and methodologies. Don’t confuse the work journalists do with the work of historians, and vice versa. John Reed’s account of the Russian Revolution is an invaluable source for historians, of course, but it is only one such source, and any history which overly relies upon it risks giving a biased account. Not to say that that doesn’t happen, but it’s explicitly antithetical to the notional goal of practicing history. No such compunction affects journalism, where the creation of a biased account is not only tolerated, sometimes it’s encouraged, or the entire purpose of a work (as it was when Reed was giving his account of Ten Days That Shook the World).

Reed even calls out his own bias in the preface of his book. He was a devoted Socialist, and his sympathies were with the reds. That affected his account. Furthermore, while he could comment on the Revolution from his vantage point (embedded with Bolsheviks as he was), he’s not necessarily the most reliable (or informed) narrator of what was happening on the Tsarist side of the conflict, simply by virtue of not having access to that perspective in the moment. That doesn’t change the value of his journalism, but it does impinge it’s value as a comprehensive history.