And, it’s not just You Tube that has allowed politicians to cut out the mainstream media. Flickr allows the White House — via official photog Pete Souza — to tell a very carefully crafted visual story of the Obama presidency. Twitter/Facebook/Google chats allows the President to speak directly to his supporters, giving them a message uncluttered by the media “lens”. The rapid rise in partisan news outlets means that politicians — in both parties — almost always can find a friendly home for material without the worries of how a neutral news outlet might handle it.

Then consider the power of aggregators when it comes to how people consume news. For the average person (and even for many political junkies) all links are created equally — no matter whether they come from a trusted independent website/news organization or not. (One senior political operative told us several years ago that “a link is a link”. He’s right — and that flattening of content has only increased over the past few years.) …

But, consider the alternative. Without a robust and independent media, politics would turn into a straight marketing campaign: A candidate presenting a carefully-tested image of him or herself designed to appeal to the largest swath of voters. Would the image being sold actually bear any resemblance to who the politician actually is? Who knows? There would be simply no way of finding out. You Tube videos don’t answer back.