Media A-Listers Flock to Futuristic Hellscape
In your interactive Tuesday media column: anywhere is better than "South by," the NYT vs HuffPo feud continues, the Tribune bankruptcy is predictably troublesome, Carl Paladino hates the press, and your mandatory Katie Couric rumor of the day.
- Judging by this recap of a David Carr-moderated panel discussion at SXSW about the potential of the internet to distract us, all of SXSW is nothing but a teeming sea of iPhone addicts too busy Twittering to ever engage with one another in the real world, a sort of postmodernist absurdity in which thousands of people travel thousands of miles only to isolate themselves in small individual bubbles of technology. And judging by this Katie Rosman report, the whole thing is a nightmare world in which the nerds from high school won and started their own futuristic world that's just as punitive and status-obsessed as normal high school. And that's exactly why we don't go to SXSW. Also we weren't invited.
- The NYT is soliciting pet videos and the HuffPo is making fun of them for it, because of Bill Keller's whole anti-aggregation spiel. Which is fine, but in fairness, we hasten to note that the NYT has been reporting on pure pet-related bullshit for some time now.
- Hey, how's that Tribune bankruptcy going? Well, there are problems.
- Dark-lidded comic book villain and failed gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is now threatening to sue the Buffalo News because they reported on his financial misdeeds. Here's his letter to the editor, which proves that Carl Paladino leaves most comments found on internet websites.
- Katie Couric has been talking to ABC about maybe going there later, maybe. Call us when she signs a god damn deal somewhere. The amount of coverage we give to the rumors about Katie Couric's future belies the fact that we don't care that much about Katie Couric's future.