Covering old media with new media

Debbie Galant of Baristanet interviewed New York Times media columnist David Carr.

Here is an excerpt:

You write about media and you’re in the media, and you’re doing both the old media and the new media. You could you talk about that, wearing all those hats. Is it particularly uncomfortable in this town, where everybody’s a journalist?

To the issue of sort of old and new media, I have four newspapers on this table right now, Star Ledger, the Post, the Times and the Journal. I have an iPad too. I don’t believe in the sort of bifurcation of old and new. The whole “we’re old world media, we make phone calls and we put them in the newspaper” and “we’re new media and we grab whatever’s in the ether and put it up.” There’s been this steady march toward each other and what you’re doing is no different from what I do.

And social media, which we viewed as a sort of threat because it grabs so much mind share, we find out now is a friend. Every four seconds there’s a link on Twitter that carries content for The New York Times. And it’s helping us access a demographic we otherwise would not have. It’s a great way for us to refresh our demographic from the bottom in terms of ages. And the Times itself, I think with the redesign of 2002 or 2003, whatever it was of their website, went out front in digital terms. Seventy blogs. I spent four years covering the Oscars. I did videos that didn’t look like television. I don’t look like someone who would be on TV. And people are looking for verisimilitude and authenticity on the web.

So the fact that a guy who looked a little bereft or homeless was on a red carpet in Hollywood talking to people, I think that helped all of us understand a little bit, there’s real potential. I walked up to Brad Grey, who I’d never met, who ran Paramount, and I said, “My name’s David Carr and I’ll be covering the awards season for the Times” and he said, “I know you. I’ve seen you on my iPod. Every week I watch your videos.” That was kind of a moment for me.