Somewhere along the line, even those of us who are not deeply versed in Hegel probably have heard the popularized version of his theory that historical change is the product of clashes of ideas. "Thesis," the leading idea of an age, confronts "antithesis" and out of that comes "synthesis," a new idea that contains some elements of both and becomes the next era's thesis.

The model is chemical—mix blue paint and yellow paint and you get green paint. But one can also imagine a physical model for this process: two masses collide, then shatter, producing not synthesis but something else—"multi-thesis," perhaps.

It is not yet clear which of these models describes the changes that have taken place recently in American political journalism. It's clear which one seems to apply at the moment—the clash between the partisan journalism of the 19th century and the objective journalism that until recently has characterized the 20th has produced a variety of only partially satisfactory new forms, investigative reporting and the "New Journalism" chief among them. But the 13-year experience of a magazine called The Washington Monthly offers hope that a new synthesis really is emerging. Without any of Adam's confidence that the name I give this synthesis will stick, I call it "Evaluative Journalism."