The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

News is different from other programming on television or other content in print. It is essential to an informed electorate. And an informed electorate is essential to freedom itself. But as long as corporations to which news gathering is not the primary source of income or expertise get to decide what information about the candidates “sells,” we are not functioning as well as we could if we had the engaged, skeptical press we deserve. 

Hillary Clinton has won the Pennsylvania primary, and something akin to formal permission to continue campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.

With most of the Pennsylvania vote counted, she's ahead 55-45.

That's a credible victory, if not perhaps so dramatic a finish as would have been needed to fundamentally change the reality that the senator from New York is unlikely to win the Democratic nod.

Clinton will keep campaigning. This race will continue for at least two more weeks, and probably longer. That will excite Clinton backers, just as it will disappoint Obama backers.

It's messy. It's frustrating. But this is what democracy looks like. And it will keep looking this way until Obama beats Clinton in a state she's supposed to win -- or until Obama finally wins not just a plurality but a majority of delegates. 

While Obama has clearly caught up to, and perhaps passed, Clinton in the battle for the nomination, they continue to have complementary strengths and weaknesses. To win in November, Obama is going to have do much much better among the white working class--one can assume that he would get Clinton's female voters just as she would get his African American voters. Clinton, on other hand, looks very shaky among white men. There remains a question, too, whether the young voters and independents who have flocked to Obama's banner would vote for her in the fall.