Good point. My feeling is that the nature of op-ed pieces is that it's very difficult to anticipate the audience, that is, who will read the article. I'm an academic, and in a way, an op-ed piece like this is an experiment in attempting to reach a wider audience, certainly a wider audience than a conventional scholarly journal article. However, having said that, there is a strong argument in media studies (and this will support what you are saying) that the internet is fractionating opinion, that is, we tend to read stuff we agree with, and thus convince ourselves that we're correct. Thus, so the argument goes, there's not much genuine dialogue and interchange happening these days. Depressing outlook, I know, but I try to argue we should light a candle, rather than curse the darkness. Or at least try to do so.