The Internet now makes facts so effortless to obtain that there is the illusion of knowledge where none actually exists. With so many low-budget Web logs that do little more than emotionally react to the headlines, rare is the commentator who does the field work necessary to earn his opinions — or even his prejudices. And as punditry has crowded out the space once owned by print correspondents, the public is increasingly removed from the intangible essences and minutiae of distant places that explain the present, and thus forewarn of the future.

Robert D. Kaplan - Columbia Journalism Review