There's a reason why I write a column called Policy Matters.

Well, alright. There are several reasons.

I got to thinking about this particular reason at the tag end of last week, when I entered the Journalism Twilight Zone.

On the one hand, there was the ongoing conversation in professional circles about the probable demise of several venerable newspapers and the burning question of whether that was a harbinger of the Death of Journalism As We Know It.

On the other hand, there was Jon Stewart.

Like a lot of others in this profession, I had expounded knowledgeably with my peers about changing consumer expectations and new content platforms and business models that don't work anymore. And there is a certain amount of validity to all of that.

But the Friday edition of The Daily Show blew a lot of it out of the water.

You've heard about it, haven't you? In the wake of the financial market collapse, Jon Stewart was perturbed by the failure of the business and financial press to ... well, report the business news. So, after grousing on his show about that for awhile, Stewart invited CNBC financial analyst Jim Cramer on his show to confront him in person.

There, he essentially asked Cramer a single question: Um ... you know that little snafu that vaporized everybody's 401Ks? Well, you guys at CNBC are supposed to be financial journalists. Why didn't you tell us about this?

Daniel Sinker of the Huffington Post sums up the real import of that hard-hitting interview with a single sentence: "When we can't compete with a comic in terms of speaking truth to power, then it's more clear than ever that journalism in the US has lost its way."

Policy does matter. It matters to you for more reasons than I can conveniently list here.

Policy comes from somewhere, though, and that matters, too. That's why policy matters to me. It's important for somebody to confront those in power (with their own words, if need be), to add context to events so that you fully appreciate their significance, to hold your elected representatives accountable.

Otherwise, we're all sheep.

The mainstream media used to do that. And maybe that's what has really changed. Now, instead of newspapers, it's comedians — and the occasional, truly independent news outlet holding the toes to the fire.