The national debate is not served by homogenizing discussion and disagreement into the one-size-fits-all package that big media has had to become or into the one-from-column-A/one-from-column-B teetering balance of cable news. Don't we often say, nostalgically, that towns were better served when they had many newspapers of differing views serving varied audiences? Isn't that what blogs resurrect: the cacophony of the town square?

...That cacophony of voices and viewpoints seems so unruly to those of us who've made our living ordering the world for print. But the noise is good. It's democratic. If we're going to look for closed societies and echo chambers, shouldn't we look at the gang covering the prepackaged press conference that's now a cable commodity?