If Werner Heisenberg hadn’t been such a crackerjack physicist—also, if he weren’t dead—he might make a fine “public editor” for the New York Times, or maybe an “ombudsman” for the Washington Post. Ombudsmen are those unemployed people whom news organizations hire to assess reader complaints and rap the knuckles of reporters and editors who get out of line. My guess, though, is that none of his employers would have listened to Heisenberg. His great insight, the Uncertainty Principle, cuts straight through to the fantasy most cherished by the mainstreamers of the American press. Heisenberg’s principle can be crudely generalized (it’s...