Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.

All institutions have lapses, even great ones, especially by individual rogue employees - famously in recent years at The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the three original TV networks.

There's something totally crazy about this.

The greatest felony in the news business today is to be behind, or to miss a big story. So speed and quantity substitute for thoroughness and quality, for accuracy and context.

The failures of the press have contributed immensely to the emergence of a talk-show nation, in which public discourse is reduced to ranting and raving and posturing. We now have a mainstream press whose news agenda is increasingly influenced by this netherworld.

Even at the end of a presidential election campaign, we have no way to know what Mitt Romney really believes.