Local newsrooms can combat polarization, if only they have the margins

Recently, former president Barack Obama spoke with the New York Times’ Ezra Klein about persuasion and pluralism. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama told Klein, “it was still possible for me to go into a disproportionately white conservative town in rural America and get a fair hearing.” As an example, Obama offered what he described as a typical interaction with a local newspaper in small-town southern Illinois. “Usually, the local paper was owned by a modestly conservative, maybe...