SXSW: Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies?

Jimmy Gardner March 14, 2010 Tweet

On Day 2 of SXSW, after a lunch of Foodspotting and a rest time for many people, a session titled “Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies,”perked things up.  The session, in the Hilton next to the Austin Convention Center, had a distinguished panel, including:

• Greg Beato, Reason Magazine
• Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos
• Amy Langfield, NewYorkology LLC
• David Carr,  New York Times
• Henry Copeland, blogads.com

I arrived a bit late but was anxious to hear the panelists’ take on the topic.  Interestingly, and not in a bad way, the discussion turned into an argument between old media versus new media and what the future holds.  It seemed most of the back and forth was between David Carr and Markos Moulitsas, old vs new.

The crux of the debate centered around new blogs and blog publications like the Huffington Post and Daily Kos, which have worked hard to gain credibility, but have not quite reached the point where they are accepted on certain levels as an establishment like the New York Times has.

The old media argument was that crowdsourcing news from channels like Twitter cannot be taken seriously, by the new media folks argued that it could be with proper fact checking, just like the NY Times does with its own stories.

In the end, it was the classic old versus new argument we have been hearing for the last few years.  Check out the twitter stream from the panel for some great insights on the discussion.