Shed a tear for poor Washington DC: the party is apparently over. You may or may not recall that just over a year ago in the midst of the euphoria over Barack Obama’s inauguration, people were falling over themselves penning columns about how New York was dead and Washington was where the party was at. No longer! Political rancor has apparently claimed another victim.

In today’s Media Equation column in the New York Times, David Carr tackles Demand Studios, the content creation behemoth behind sites like eHow, Livestrong, and a hefty chunk of the videos on YouTube. They are a new breed of media company, a self-identified “Social Publishing Ecosystem for leading digital brands.” And they’re swiftly dominating the Internet.

ohn Nichols and Robert McChesney, this was a book promotional event and an opportunity to outline their recommendations to save traditional journalism. It was a setup for a predictable night full of previews of what’s contained inside yet another “save journalism” solution book. Yet, thankfully, David Carr took a topic that has been spoken about to death and breathed new life into the discussion.

New technology invariably brings, along with change, a torrent of anxiety about what that change will lookl ike. This anxiety can be more or less poetic. “Twitter is crack for media addicts,” wrote George Packer in a recent blogpost. The new anxiety – induced, primarily, by the new media – is the prosiest prose.

Jake Dobkin, the publisher and co-founder of New York City local news blog Gothamist, will appear on a New York Times panel for executives on Thursday, moderated by Times media critic David Carr. But the mention of the Times as “a credible editorial resource” sent Dobkin off on a rampage of a response, berating the paper in an email that he also posted on his public Facebook.

There is something sadly touching about this blog post from the New Yorker’s George Packer that went up over the weekend (and quickly proceeded to made the rounds on Twitter!). In it Packer confesses to feeling that Twitter was “is an image from information hell.” Also, it’s all David Carr’s fault!

As dialogue continues to swirl about the iTampon’s big iLetdown, David Carr’s recent article in the New York Times touches on a point that has often gone unsaid: this is a media consumption device, not a gadget, and its larger size is precisely what makes it special.

A recent Newsweek column makes a bold, if slightly counter-intuitive pronouncement that pairs media and politics: “Roger Ailes is the real head of the GOP” argues Howard Fineman in “Life of the Party.” But it just sounds so familiar… Ah, yes — we have been making a similar case for months. A column by our own Colby Hall called Ailes “The Most Powerful Political Figure In America.”

There’s no argument that brand name newspapers have undergone huge shifts in recent history. We’ve read David Carr‘s estimation of partisan changes at the Wall Street Journal, and countless reports and predictions about the future of the New York Times. Now, the next issue of The New Republic dedicates its cover story to evolution at the storied Washington Post under the new reign of Katharine Weymouth and Marcus Brauchli. Preview inside!

Last month we named Roger Ailes as #1 on our Mediaite 50, ranking the top innovators and influencers in media

And now it looks like the New York Times agrees. David Carr and Tim Arango give the Fox News Chairman the full Sunday profile treatment today, looking at all aspects of the man who has built the most successful news channel of the last decade.

“Mainstream media have been accused of pathologizing the African-American male, but — let’s face it — three men who happened to be black moved a lot of units this year. Just try to imagine this past year in media without President Obama, Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods.” The NYT’s David Carr reflects on a year in media.

In this morning’s New York Times, media columnist David Carr counted himself among the “chorus of journalism church ladies” who “warned that one of the crown jewels of American journalism now resided in the hands of a roughneck” when it was sold to Rupert Murdoch two years ago. And after charging that the paper developed a conservative bias, the Wall Street Journal‘s editor-in-chief Robert Thomson is firing back.

David Carr’s latest New York Times column, “Reality TV’s Glare Hits High Office,” has more zingers than Obama has photo ops, as he suggests the president scale back on the “oversharing.” The White House-crashing Salahis are after reality TV fame, but the Obamas have it locked down. But in his criticism of the “Celebrity in Chief,” isn’t he forgetting an important player — namely the press club he’s a valuable member of?

After every major speech, after every event really, Twitter is usually ablaze with people weighing in with their thoughts and opinions, and takeaways. It’s like one big cable show but (thankfully) without the sound. Last night however, there was a definite sense of ‘everyone shut-up, already’ permeating the media twittersphere.

After Harry Potter’s worldwide record-breaking weekend, we got to talking about certain parallels between the magical land of Hogwarts and the equally magical land of headlines, bylines, cutlines, chyrons, blog pickup and declining ad pages. Turns out, the two have a lot in common!

On that note, for your edification and enjoyment, we present our own version – let’s call it “Harry Potter and the Media Muggles.”

Michael Bloomberg’s close re-election caught everyone, including the MSM, by surprise. Now NYT readers are beating down public editor Clark Hoyt’s door wanting to know how come the results were such a surprise?! One of the answers appears to be that the Times couldn’t afford to do their own polling.

Right now Jeff Jarvis and CUNY are hosting their “New Business Models For News” conference which attempts to wrangle with wild, runaway world of new-old media every year, financed by the burgeoning bank of the link economy. It’s a great line-up of speakers (see here) and they’ve put various models online for those at home [...]

While the salvos between FNC and the White House have recently abated, we are now left to wonder: what the hell happened? It’s clear why FNC loved the controversy — it helped their ratings and allowed them to cover one of their favorite topics: Fox News!

But the unanswered question thus far is this: what exactly did the White House get out of it? Three words: Health care reform.

On Friday evening, Beck was having fun with some mobster movie clips, playing reel of Robert Deniro in the ’80s mafia film The Untouchables, and slapping around a baseball bat while speaking in his Mobsta’ voice. But when he was finished playing Deniro, he invoked the New York Times media critic David Carr.

Is the journalism industry so down at the mouth these days that David Letterman is the only thing standing between it an utter irrelevance? Probably not, but you’d be forgiven for drawing that conclusion based on how much ink the Late Show host’s love life continues to generate. How much more can we read before utter boredom with the ‘scandal’ sets in.

The Washington Post became the largest name in news to issue guidelines about acceptable use of social networking platforms, namely Twitter and Facebook. But when paidContent ran the rules in their entirety, it fueled a firestorm against the policies on the web. Today, the Post‘s Howard Kurtz responds, but seems hesitant and provides little convincing support for the rules.

Gawker publisher Nick Denton twitters about the common thread linking Gawker’s recent powerhouse posts. Perhaps the updated adage should be: a picture’s worth a thousand words, a million clicks, and lots of ad dollars. Also, in at least one case, a million dollar lawsuit.

On Monday it was reported that New York City police officers had been spotted at News Corp. headquarters confiscating copies of the Yes Men’s fake New York Post and that the volunteers who’d been handing them out had been detained. Was Rupert Murdoch, himself, responsible for blocking the Yes Men’s freedom of speech?

The sky is falling! Oprah‘s ratings are down 7% last season, and as is the case with all things, this must have something to do with Barack Obama, somehow. In an article about the ratings decline, the AP quotes an author who says that Oprah’s endorsement of Obama has hurt her in the heartland.

But does this theory pass the sniff test?

See what happens when the New York Times doesn’t delete a Media Decoder post it puts up? It has the power to make Keith Olbermann see the light and completely change his mind!

The MSNBC host had planned to continue his online call for his fans to dig up dirt on Glenn Beck and more – but that was before David Carr weighed in.