Just heard an interview with Amy Goodman in which she recounted a very interesting story that illustrates just how valuable independent media sources are in our system. (See link for full transcript)
This story describes how she took a call on election day in 2000, from then president Clinton, who was calling around to ask people to get out and vote. She took the opportunity to ask him a series of hard-hitting questions that the mainstream media would never dare ask, for fear of losing the rare access they are granted to administration officials (even rarer these days).
Although the president was at least willing to stay on the line and answer the questions, she was called the next day and told that she was banned from the white house from that point forward, because she didn’t ask the right questions.