The Year in Brief: Good Riddance To Mainstream Media

John Hockenberry, Jim VandeHei, Michael Wolff debate "Good Riddance to Mainstream Media" against Katrina vanden Heuvel, David Carr, and Phil Bronstein.

This may not have been the groundbreaking internet video of 2011, but I thought about it often while reading this year’s highlights, including: reader comment threads (on The Clock, gif size, and Laurel Nakadate), frank blog-to-blog rebuttal (Kyle Chayka’s The Art Kids Are Not Alright  and Ben Davis’s stand for OWS Museum protestors), online OWS coverage (especially at Artinfo and the Observer), e-flux philosophies, and progressive online publications (n+1 OWS paper, Triple Canopy).

Mainstream media is overrated, argues Jim VandeHei of Politico.  VendeHei claims that profits have created a major disconnect between media institutions and their readers; now some of the most in-depth news coverage — of domestic policy, for example — happens at new online publications. Besides, new media equips the mainstream with tools for survival.  In order to continue, it must now look to the speed, transparency, and openness that we demand from the internet.

But we wouldn’t have accountable coverage of major news events such as 911, Hurricane Katrina, and the war, says Times reporter David Carr, without the journalistic muscle of mainstream media.  The writer believes the best links on Twitter are to mainstream media sources; without them we’re left only with empty posturing. We’re not so sure about that last point — art discourse is subjective and often allotted meagre resources by large publishing outfits — but on accountability, truer words have not been spoken. That matters to everyone.

Tagged as: ArtInfo, Ben Davis, david carr, eflux, jim vandehei, john hockenberry, katrina vanden heuvel, Kyle Chayka, michael wolff, n plus one, ows, ows newspaper, Phil Bronstein, politico, the observer, triple canopy