Bill Keller's Hugo Young lecture (via The Guardian):
I think the polarisation of our political life together with the free-for-all of the internet have contributed to a climate of intolerance, a closing of minds, a sense that competing viewpoints are not merely to be refuted, but obliterated. We don't debate, we demonise. Occasionally the hostility is clever. Earlier this year the New York Times announced that it would be converting to a narrower page format. Somebody immediately posted a message that shot around the right-wing blogosphere: "One and a half inches down" it said. "Twelve inches to go."
....
The curse of a journalist is that he always has more questions than answers. A question at least as interesting as 'will we survive?' is, how will the new medium change us? There is no doubt that as we manipulate the medium, it manipulates us back, so that for someone in my job the challenge is not just to generate revenues, but to retain the best qualities of the New York Times.
