"Fuck New Media"

This time Technorati can't blame me entirely for the salty headline.

No, the above phrase was uttered by Columbia Journalism School professor Ari Goldman to his "Reporting and Writing 1" students. "Goldman, a former Times reporter and sixteen-year veteran RW1 professor," New York Magazine reports, "described new-media training as 'playing with toys,' according to another student, and characterized the digital movement as 'an experimentation in gadgetry.'"

You might rethink those "gadgets," Ari, because if you actually read the news, you'd know those "toys" were rapidly replacing newsprint. That sound you hear, Ari? It's the shutters closing on two of the oldest newspapers formerly published in major media markets.

Both, by the way, are being reborn in some fashion as online-only publications. I guess boys will be boys when it comes to their toys.

Now, I know, Ari, you claim not to be against new media. You just want your students to master the fundamentals, which you claim they can practice in any medium. But you're wrong there, too. True, we need good, honest, in-depth reporting now more than ever. But online is no place for the long form. And your students will need to learn how to deliver their good, honest, in-depth reportage in a manner appropriate to their digitally savvy readers and the medium that will carry it.

Size matters, Ari, if you want to "fuck new media." And smaller is better in our online and increasingly mobile world.