Over the course of 2011, we covered an array of politicians, authors, entertainers, media mavens, and others as they discussed their crafts and their industries. (Here’s last year’s list.) We enjoyed most of the panels, lectures, and debates we took in, while some of them fell short. Here, a rundown of our 5 favorites, followed by the 10 quotes that defined the year in New York City media panels:

Who: Michael Lewis, interviewed by Ira Glass What: “Michael Lewis in Conversation with Ira Glass” Where: 92nd St. Y When: February 3, 2011 Thumbs: Up It’s a subject some of us choose not to discuss or think about anymore. Not because it makes us uncomfortable, but because it’s been exhausted over the past few years. [...]

As someone who is one of the many influenced by BIll Simmons, an everyman fan who has been a writer at ESPN.com for more than a decade, I will be among the first to admit he isn’t the pure commoner he once embodied. His reach in sports journalism now includes the NY Times bestseller list, the 30 for 30 sports documentary series he produces and his star-studded podcast, The BS Report. His self-carved empire exists somewhere in the middle of “Booyah” and the screaming heads of Pardon The Interruption. And yet, he still is able to “keep it real.”

Happy Anniversary Great Recession. A year ago today Lehman Bros. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sent the economy into a tailspin the country is still struggling to cope with. Here’s a look back at the top five media moments from the last twelve months.

In October, 1991, James Fallows wrote a hilarious takedown of the Economist that ran in the Washington Post’s Outlook Section. The essay attempted to explain why perfectly intelligent people, like Harvard’s Robert Reich (who at the time was in the middle of a squabble with Newsweek’s Robert Samuelson), would say things like: “I, for one, [...]

An article in week’s issue of Time titled “Business Journalism: A Vanishing Necessity?” suggests that the recent demise of Portfolio, as well as the current financial struggles of Business Week, are some sort of measure that business journalism itself is under threat. Really? Perhaps the real problem is that Time needs to widen its definition of “business journalism.”

The A.I.G. Financial Products unit is to the global financial crisis what rickety levees were to Hurricane Katrina. But as Michael Lewis points out in his excellent article in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, F.P., as it’s called, used to be the envy of Wall Street. In 2001, the elite unit accounted for a [...]