I’ve never been a media doomsayer, but the two years prior to forming Elasticity were extraordinarily frustrating. I was pigeon-holed into focusing on media relations strategy as I watched the opportunities to land stories in traditional media, as well as the influence of those media outlets, dry up.

Increasingly I was finding that even when pitching a quality concept, there was no appetite for it. It wasn’t that the pitch was bad (well, sometimes). It was that so many reporters were being walked out the door, and the work was being heaped on top of those who remained. Therefore, coverage was become very streamlined and limited.

Three experiences this week reminded me of my frustrations:

• An editor I know took a buyout from Fortune magazine as it continues to plummet.
• An Associated Press reporter who I pitched told me he loved the story, but due to vast layoffs at AP, they were really only looking at breaking, kick-you-in-the-face news stories as that’s all their staff could manage.
• And finally there was a question form my high school friend Marty, a graduate of THE UNIVERSITY who is an outstanding writer and editor for Politico.com.  He asked: “by 2012 will it be possible for a presidential candidate to try to do all their media work via Twitter, Facebook, direct email, other social networking, friendly sit downs (Fox, Oprah, etc) and NEVER have to sit down with NYT, WaPo, the network anchors, etc?”

My initial answer to Marty’s question was, “Right now we have ‘Old’ and ‘New’ media … we’ll get to a point again where it’s simply media. From a strategy standpoint, we never present an idea that does not have components of many forms of media — new, old, mobile, online, etc. The reality is that we live in an ADHD world where we are bombarded with media at every turn. And to truly reach everyone — you need to invest in all of it. That’s why Ashton Kutcher won his Twitter race with CNN by taking out billboards….ironically.”

Then I did something I rarely do as I lack the intellectual capacity:  I thought about his question.  What I realized is that we’ve already reached the point where a candidate can “try to do all their media work via Twitter, Facebook, direct email, other social networking….” as Marty had asked.

Now let me be clear here: I am not saying that traditional media is dead. It is clearly struggling to find its way, but it is not dead and in fact often validates trends as the New York Times did with “Rick Rolling.”

That being said, you must consider some interesting numbers. From October 2008 to October 2009, time spent viewing video on social networking sites increased 98 percent year-over-year according to Nielsen. In conjunction, the number of online video streams viewed on social networking and blog sites increased 45 percent year-over-year as well.

Yahoo! News is the leading online news portal with 41 milion unique visitors monthly — up 10 percent for October.  AOL News was another winner with 24 million — up 17 percent. At the same time, the likes of CBS (-9 percent), USA Today (-15 percent), NPR (-9 percent) and the Washington Post (-28 percent) are all down.

So what’s behind this? Just talk to someone 40 or under (except for people who are lying because they are afraid to admit it in mixed company). Most of them will tell you they don’t have time for news, and when they do, it comes via links from friends.

Think about it: you open Facebook and in your news feed a friend spouts, “Great story from Popular Aikido Masters Hairstyles Monthly” with a link. You love Aikido! So you click on it. Same with Twitter, or even in e-mail — links, links, links.  That’s how more and more people are getting their news in our increasingly “I’m too busy for anything” culture.

That’s also why, despite its industry leading position, the average visitor is only going to Yahoo! News 5.76 times monthly — just 5.76 times per month. No more do we have that old-school commitment to diligently read our favorite news source as we did 20 or even 10 years ago with daily newspaper subscriptions.

So what does this all mean? Here’s what I’m interpreting, at least until I change my mind (tomorrow).

Marty, I think the time may have come, but via a slightly different path. Whether it’s a political candidate, a band trying to find new fans, The Muppets, or a company trying to influence an audience — the kings of delivering their messages, are in fact, links through these increasingly vital channels.

And as long as the content is interesting, funny, thought provoking or helpful it could be from anywhere –  a video from the New York Times on Clay Zavada’s roots, celebrity smack on GossipCandy, or the American Mustache Institute’s industry-leading opinions on why Dave Navarro is worthless.

It’s quality content delivered ultimately delivered, not by the “paper boy,” but through links.