The most remarkable thing about Barack Obama's fourth press conference, just concluded, wasn't his semi-tougher tone on Iran, or his pleasingly sharp words for the private insurance industry or even his admission (without specifics) that he still sneaks the occasional smoke. The most remarkable thing was that the best question – I mean far and away the best question – didn't come from a journalist.

A journalist conveyed it – Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post. He was called on second. As any political junkie knows, Pitney has been doing a fantastic job over the last several days aggregating hundreds of Tweets from Iran and doing his own original reporting, becoming a real go-to source for people wanting to stay up-to-the-minute on post-election developments.

So Obama called on Pitney and even shot him props for the job he's been doing. Then Pitney asked not his own question, but a question from an Iranian that he had solicited earlier: "Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad, and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the – of what the demonstrators there are working towards?" We'll get to the substance of the question, but first it's worth reflecting on the fact of it. This is a Moment. With the advent of television, politicians learned to go around the press and speak directly to the people. But "the people" always meant, you know, the people of his own country. Now, with social media, "the people" means the globe. It's kind of an amazing thing that this anonymous (so far) Iranian, sitting at home last night in Tehran or Shiraz or wherever it was, minding his or her own business, could convey a question to a journalist halfway across the world and that the question would end up being conveyed to the president of the United States. It's kind of an unsettling thing for the traditional media. This Politico description of the moment is kind of snippy and huffy-puffy. It notes that Obama broke protocol by calling on HuffPo that early. And it describes the moment as a "clearly coordinated exchange".

It was coordinated, obviously, insofar as Obama had Pitney on his list and knew, apparently, that Pitney would be conveying a question from Iran. But that doesn't mean Obama knew the specific question. In fact the evidence suggests that he didn't know it, because he didn't really answer it (presidents, I guess, can duck global citizens' questions too). It was an important and tough question that got right to the heart of the matter. Where's this going? One of these years, the "press conference" may give way to the "news conference" (that is, no press involved), in which a president takes questions via social media from the people. All the people everywhere. It's a new world. Again.