Ezra Klein's grand theory of the media:
[B]ecause news stories move so much faster and opinion is so much louder, there's actually more demand for media that explains what those fast-moving stories are actually about. This is a need that is going largely unmet. Both the Economist and NPR are imperfect products, but that's fundamentally what they're doing. It's not quite newsgathering, and it's not straight opinion, though there's occasionally opinion in there. It's analysis. It's how to understand the stuff that other people are reporting and opining.