academia has, to some extent by its own actions, been cleaved away from public life. I hesitate to speak on television about the Civil War, because there are people who've made this the work of their life--actual experts--who should be speaking. But I also recoil at the notion of a host looking at me and saying, "John Brown--good guy or bad, guy? Go." I imagine those experts feel the same way.

Ta-Nehisi Coates hits on a key problem in the pursuit of informed political discussion. News media are rigged to be anti-expert. Nuance and contextualization, the very values that experts bring to public discourse, are at odds with the fast-paced, polarized debate format that we see on cable news, and in a different but still toxic way in new media online.

In an effort to alter this dynamic, at least for coverage of Islam in America, two friends and I have put together a proposal for the Knight News Challenge.

Islawmix: A resource for better understanding news stories about Islam and Muslims featured in American news media.

http://bit.ly/islawmix

Some of us wish to encourage in individuals the sense of justice which would embolden them to challenge the institutions that control our fate by bringing their secrets to light. Some of us wish to encourage in individuals ever greater fealty and submission to corporations and the state in order to protect the privileges and prerogatives of the powerful, lest their erosion threaten what David Brooks calls "the fragile community"—our current, comfortable dispensation.

I like this framing, but might add that some of us believe organizations should adapt to being functional and successful in the light of day.