Last week, I asked folks if they knew what “Justice Sunday” was. Some of you responded in the comments, others to me privately. The answer wasn’t really important. I was simply curious whether people really knew what this was. See, I had heard next to nothing in the regular media I watch and read about “Justice Sunday.” Every political blog I read, though, was talking about it. To read the blogs, this was a relatively big story and important.

Now, I know blogs are supposed to cover the news that the “mainstream media” misses. Often, though, I find that the political bloggers simply form their own echo chambers. I don’t mean just between blogs on one side of the political aisle, either… I mean that they all form a echo chamber together. The biggest stories become all encompassing. Even worse, the most insignificant stories become huge. For all the good that bloggers do and all the things they bring to the table, this is one of their worst attributes.

Why is this? Political blogging in its current form is written for and by activists. Maybe they’re not activists in the traditional sense, but they’re activists because they’re making the time and taking the effort to write when it’s not their day job. Activists get excited. The focus on details others miss or choose to ignore. They’re very good at agitating the not quite activist among us (call ‘em the concerned citizens). Thing is that they suck at informing the majority of people that aren’t either activists or concerned citizens. Our mass media does a better job serving those people (sad as that is). The upshot of all of this is that political bloggers can’t replace traditional media for the rest of us.

In a weird bit of synchronicity, Jesse Taylor of Pandagon fame wrote something similar today. He does a better job of describing the nature of political blogging. He doesn’t come out and quite say it, but his point comes down to the same thing. Bloggers do this for their own reasons. Anyone that can get worked up about REAL ID or universal healthcare isn’t, by any measure I know about, a typical American. Sure, typical Americans will answer yes or no to a pollster calling them up to ask their opinions, but I doubt many Americans seek out political stories.

I do see a way that media and blogs can help each other. The mainstream media can do what the bloggers can’t. Focus attention (and, as a result, capital). Edit and fact check. Filter. Most of us want that filter in place. Whether it’s RSS or a group of humans sitting in a room, we need things in front of us that keep us from getting overwhelmed. With the right incentives, bloggers and a major media outlet could form a powerful alliance. The podcast experiment underway in San Francisco is just the beginning. I wish some of the big web sites would take a chance on this.