Information will never replace illumination. But something that sounds like, except that it's better than, information -- I mean the condition of being informed; I mean concrete, specific, detailed, historically dense, first hand knowledge is the indispensable prerequisite for a writer to express opinions in public.

Susan Sontag, "The Conscience of Words"

This is something I've mulled over before -- the difference between knowledge & information. Though she's talking specifically to and about writers, I do wish this expectation could be extended to all media and, really, all participators in democracy.