This talk was covered six ways to Sunday. (http://www.imagethink.net)

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson spoke at SXSW in Austin, Tex. yesterday, further proof of her tolerance for meta-media spectacles previously hinted at by appearances at the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Iowa caucuses.

Ms. Abramson, well within her area of expertise, appeared in a conversation about “The Future of the New York Times” with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith.

Less than a year after her predecessor, Bill Keller, wondered aloud in the Times magazine if Twitter was making us stupid, Ms. Abramson said that the real question was whether or not to break news on Twitter without a story to link to. Some of her political reporters wanted to "issue an edict" against it, but she's not ideological about it. She'd seen on the campaign trail that Twitter was a “revolution” for news gathering.

(Not that you have to tell us. The Observer curated—or is it aggregated?—all the information in this post from the safety of New York, using SXSW-goers manic Tweets and Poynter editor Steve Myers's liveblog. Is there a symbol for that?)

Pressed on that front—the difference between her and Mr. Keller—she said, “He reads poetry on the subway, I’m reading my horoscope in the Post on the subway.” (Ms. Abramson is a Pisces.)

The functional difference, of course, is the 6-month digital sabbatical Ms. Abramson took before taking his post, which she described to Mr. Smith. A “scary and hopeful” time, she learned she had a lot to learn but was comforted by the fact that new media tools advance old school work like investigative reporting. Longform investigations are among the Times most popular online articles, she said.

The rest of Austin was gossiping about CNN’s rumored acquisition of Mashable, but Ms. Abramson praised the Times’s internal development team, including Andrew DeVigal and Aron Pilhofer.

Not that they get it totally right all the time.

For example, Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones, asked why the Times has the irksome habit of never linking out.

Ms. Abramson said there’s no policy against it, and there will be more of it in the future.

While Times tech and media reporters Jenna Wortham and Brian Stelter Instagrammed on the newspaper’s official SXSW Tumblr (Ms. Wortham packed a glittery vest! Mr. Stelter flew in to Dallas to save money!), Mr. Smith asked Ms. Abramson if the Times, once upon a time, wouldn’t have frowned upon strong individual reporter brands, “the David Carr-ification of the New York Times.”

Ms. Abramson said the relationship was symbiotic: Mr. Carr benefits from the institutional clout as much as the Times benefits from the Page One star’s wattage.

“No one is going to convince me otherwise,” she said.

Although Ms. Abramson’s appearance was undeniably good diplomacy toward the powerful tech leaders to which media companies now find themselves beholden, keeping pace with SXSW’s rapid-fire self-documentation is easier said than done.

Ms. Abramson herself hasn’t tweeted since December.

“I don’t pretend that I know everything but it’s been exciting and very  eye-opening and great listening time for me here,” Ms. Abramson told Forbes's Jeff Berovici before the panel.

In the video below, Ms. Abramson dressed in a leather blazer, told him she was spending her first SXSW trip meeting individually with people from Twitter and Apple, going to some sessions, and, hopefully, seeing some music. Mr. Bercovici asked which acts she was hoping to catch.

“One of the concerts that I’m hoping to go to tonight may get packed so I have to keep mum about it,” she demurred.

“You’re going to Jay-Z," he said. “Say ‘Hi’ to him for me.”

“I’ll send him your love,” she replied.

Later that night, Jay-Z sent his love to Ms. Abramson and The New York Times, as well as The New Yorker, New York magazine, and The New York Post, whose logos flashed when he performed “Empire State of Mind” in miniature tribute to his hometown media, according to the Times' Lexi Mainland.

The Observer wasn't there to take take it personally.

Already the Curator's Code-- created by Maria Popova and designer Kelli Anderson because of something David Carr said on a SXSW panel they were also on--has caused the web to explode with commentary, both pro and con. Some people love the idea, some hate it, and some are just taking issue with the word "curation." But aren't we all missing the bigger picture(s) here? Hieroglyphics are the new hyperlinks! But we think the two that have been created already don't really connote all the different ways people cull information and reprocess it on the Internet. That's why we've made our own symbols, based on the hobo code. (The photos of which we took from Wikipedia. Infinity symbol?)

The article (by Kristen Hinman who was a longtime writer for other VVM publications) posits that underage prostitution does exist, tragically, but it's largely conducted voluntarily and independently, contrary to the archetype of the young girl manipulated by a nolder pimp. That misconception, she argues, distracts policymakers from the more meaningful task of lifting child prostitutes--many of whom are boys and transsexuals, she notes--out of the cycle of homelessness and poverty that led them to it.

It includes a plea to write to Senator John Cornyn and Senator Ron Wyden in support of a bill they've authored that would provide federal money for shelters for victims of underage prostitition.

The Village Voice's skin in this game is disclosed: That stereotypical form of prostitution sometimes transpires over Backpage.com, the online classifieds site owned by Village Voice parent company Village Voice Media (VVM).

The arguments in defense of Backpage.com are significant. As David Carr pointed out in his column Monday, it's a First Amendment issue, and if it is shut it down, the business would just pop up somewhere else. Backpage.com benefited from this phenomenon when Craigslist's erotic services section was shuttered.

Mr. Carr concludes that this amounts to a "principled stand, and just because it aligns with their business interests doesn’t mean it isn’t valid," but he never addresses VVM's editorial campaign. Is journalism that aligns with their business interests still valid?

“And The New York Times, meanwhile, is writing about surfing,” he said, “and I’m sitting there going like, ‘You know what? I’m not going to talk about surfing, I’m going to talk about cannibalism, because that fucks me up.’”

“Just a sec, time out,” Mr. Carr interrupted in his authoritative rasp. “Before you ever went there, we’ve had reporters there reporting on genocide after genocide.”

He went on. “Just because you put on a fucking safari helmet and looked at some poop doesn’t give you the right to insult what we do. So, continue.”

Having once made the mistake of criticizing The Times before the self-admittedly “tribal” Mr. Carr, Off the Record couldn’t help but cringe watching the exchange.

It would have been worse had we  known then what we know now: Mr. Smith is the boss of Mr. Carr’s daughter Erin Lee Carr, an associate producer for Vice’s VBS.TV, the same outlet that put out The Vice Guide to Liberia!

We were tipped off by a recent Carr tweet: “Take w/grain of salt but this @erinleecarr chick can really write,” the proud papa wrote, linking a story about cyborg eyes.

Off the Record reached Ms. Carr at Vice’s Williamsburg office to find out what her bosses thought about her dad’s strong pro-Times advocacy. Ms. Carr wasn’t working at Vice when her father wrote about the company and the scene was shot, though she was when the movie came out.

“We thought it was funny,” Ms. Carr said. “Everyone took it with a grain of salt.”

Idioms, like journalistic prowess, tend to run in families.

“Her whole take away on the movie was ‘You’re always yelling at people,’” Mr. Carr said. “Well, why should work be any different than home, really?”

Mr. Carr said his daughter has inherited his company loyalty, and that he himself thinks Vice is “totally gangster.”

Gangster?! Oh my god, David, no one says that anymore.

Mr. Stelter, fan of 'Doug.'

In one of the more quotable moments from the documentary Page One, media reporter David Carr refers to his colleague, television reporter Brian Stelter, as "a robot created by The New York Times to destroy me."

Since then, Mr. Stelter's been doing damage control on his metallic reputation. He's escorted CNBC beauty Nicole Lapin down the aisle at the documentary's premiere, graced the star-studded pages of Page Six in an item about their relationship, and then landed a book deal. Now, he's talking at length about the warm and fuzzy memories he has watching "Doug" and other classic Nickelodeon shows. We liked "The Adventures of Pete & Pete" too, Brian! You just can't be a robot!

As The Observer reported just days ago, TeenNick will begin playing shows such as “Clarissa Explains It All” and “Kenan & Kel” between the hours of midnight and 4 a.m. (It bears repeating, from the previous article, that these are prime drinking hours.)

"Some of the original children of the Nickelodeon channel for kids are growing up, and they're saying they want their old Nickelodeon back.," Mr. Stelter explains in the video.

He goes on to note that his favorite of the bunch was always "Doug." And with the news today that Mr. Stelter and his girlfriend have parted ways, perhaps that classic cartoon is the right balm to ease heartbreak. Doug Funnie never got with Patti Mayonnaise, either, man. It's going to be all right.

Also, the "Doug" theme song is now permanently stuck in our head.

And with it, a star is born: New York Times media reporter David Carr.

Yes, those same movie theaters that beam Twee indie movies like Garden State or Sophia Coppola's latest into people's heads are now bringing Jersey's own Timesman, Mr. Carr—pictured above, left—to the silver screen. It was a natural fit long before the cameras entered the building: the Media Equation writer has had a wild career long before ascending to the Times, including but not limited to dalliances with crack cocaine as detailed in his memoir, The Night of the Gun. Debate about the film's politics or message aside, those writing about the film seem to single out Mr. Carr in particular: his "performance" in the film has been pored over more vividly than the image of any other reporter in the country—and certainly, the Times—in recent memory.

New York Times reporters don't get the movie star treatment without causing some kind of intense ruckus (see: Judy Miller, Jayson Blair, or alternatively, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, or Andrew Ross Sorkin). The last two Times writers to appear in major films at all only had brief cameos (Mr. Sorkin in the HBO adaptation of his book, Too Big to Fail, and Paul Krugman as a comic foil to Jonah Hill and Russel Brand in Get Him to the Greek).

The descriptors used for Mr. Carr are not what you'd normally find in those typically characterizing Times reporters; they sound more like that of a film noir detective; they could also easily be mistaken for another "survivor" in a "treacherous environment" (such as the Times is), Man vs. Nature's Bear Grylls (pictured above, right).

As such, here's a (by no means comprehensive) grouping of the adjectives and descriptors from the last few weeks of press on Page One and Man vs. Nature. Are they describing David Carr, or Bear Grylls? Go!

• "Grizzled."
• "Unshaven."
• "Actually looks pretty well put together."
• "Hard-boiled, asphalt voiced."
• "Weathered."
• "A train-wreck."
• "Insightful."
• "Hardly fits standard notions of a movie idol."
• "Like a western maverick."
• "Daredevil."
• "Like a domesticated Hunter Thompson."
• "A colorful, unconventionally mediagenic character."
• "Salty."
• "Pacino-like saltiness."
• "Few better people to be left stranded in the wilderness."
• "Screechy-scratchy."
• "Shameless hambone."
• "Quasi-bohemian, self-regarding wiseguy."
• "Unlikely but charismatic."
• "Adventurer."
• "Grotesque, annoying, yet somehow transfixing."
• "A wisecracking fireball of charisma."
• "A voluble personality."
• "Pointedly eccentric."
• "Off-beat."

Finally, an easy one, but extra points if you guess the author:

• "The Snooki of journalism."

A sequel to the film is unlikely, but in the event film producers have extra cash on hand, the Observer is currently crafting a pitch wherein Mr. Carr and media desk men Brian Stelter and Bruce Hedlam eat a fistful of peyote in the desert and are tasked with coming back from a vision quest with new ways of making the paper more profitable. Given the aforementioned reviews of Page One and the star-like qualities evident in the Times newsroom by them, we're practically insuring a sure-fire formula for all stripes of audiences' enjoyment everywhere.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Mr. Sorkin's hatred of bloggers stems from an incident during his West Wing days, when he took to a Television Without Pity message board to defend himself against criticism, and was given a harsh shellacking on the board and in the press for doing so. He channeled this into a particularly wonderful episode of The West Wing. Since then, he's taken every chance he can to sideswipe the matter of these pesky bloggers who blog things (it's often argued that he wrote an entire film about his distaste for the democratizing nature of the internet, let alone the press he did for it), forgetting the fact that he still often takes to those same blogs to communicate with the hoi polloi whenever it's called for.

But even for him, this—from an Interview magazine Q & A with David Carr, a New York Times media reporter and the primary Times staffer featured in Page One, the documentary about the Times—is a particularly bad look.

Mr. Sorkin is discussing with Mr. Carr the matter of Brian Stelter, the other Page One protagonist who was hired by theTimes' media desk in 2007 after the acquisition of his television industry news blog TV Newser, all while he was still in college. A blogger, hired at the Times! One would think Mr. Sorkin, once considered a wunderkind of sorts for his play A Few Good Men, could relate.

And then, this happens:

SORKIN: And The New York Times felt that [Stelter] should be working there?

CARR: Yeah, which seemed like a pretty weird idea at the time. But he has become such an asset. We collaborate a lot. The robot part is that he moves his elbow and content comes out. While he’s chatting, he’s also tweeting and blogging—and, you know, I’ll think that’s cute, and then the next day he’ll be on the front page with a synthetic piece about the analytics of television or new media, which he also covers. If Brian wasn’t such a decent guy, I would actually slip something into his food or quietly suffocate him with a pillow.

SORKIN: I’m glad to hear he’s a decent guy who has the respect of his co-workers. So then I’ll speak to this idea more generally: I know when I read something in The New York Times that whoever wrote it had to be very good to get the job that they have. But I don’t know anything about the person who is blogging online. It’s an easy job to get. Anybody can be a blogger—you just set up a site and blog. But there isn’t the same kind of accountability. I mean, The New York Times makes mistakes—Jayson Blair, Judith Miller—but when it does, it’s a very big deal.

Not so much, but that—like Mr. Sorkin's erroneous and wide-reaching assessment of the action of blogging as the mating call of the bottom feeders of the entire internet and not as another format of writing (one quite celebrated at the Times), or his complete misunderstanding of the concept of "citizen journalism" by comparing it to "citizen medicine" —is, of course,  a different story, though not one Mr. Sorkin will ever read, since, of course, he's not so big on reading bloggers.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

“Well,” NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams told the Transom, “we’re surrounded by irony.”

He gestured towards the room’s boom-time centerpiece. “We’re having this conversation 10 feet from a sculpture of a bull nicely mimicking [the one] on Wall Street, and standing on, um, help me with the imagery...” Mr. Williams said. We did. “Yes!” he said. “A pile of money.”

Subtlety be damned! Or so screamed the four Robert Indiana paintings reconfigured from the iconic L-O-V-E to spell H-O-P-E. Under them, Warren Buffett sat with five women, snacking on pastries. George Soros ambled about, at one point breezing by Mr. Sorkin when the Times writer attempted a handshake. Mr. Soros spent the rest of the night at a table—also filled with women—in plain sight, unmolested. Other subjects Mr. Sorkin reports on mingled around the pool, along with some of the actors—James Woods, Topher Grace, William Hurt, Paul Giamatti—paid to portray them.

Yet, for Mr. Sorkin, one particularly accurate performance stood out.

“I play a reporter for about four seconds,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, ‘How did I prepare for that?’ Well, it was really torturous.”

“He’s unusually capable of imitating a human being!” chimed in fellow Times man David Carr. “You go, ‘God he’s really nice,’ but then you see his work and you go, ‘There must be something secretly evil about him.’ But there’s not!”

“The check is in the mail for this man,” Mr. Sorkin concluded.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

The Oct. 30 "Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear" on the National Mall was attended by about 200,000 supporters. 

"I felt like, in twelve years, I'd earned a moment to tell people who I was. And that's what I did," Stewart told Maddow of his reasons for holding the rally. 

Stewart's rally earned its share of critics to go along with the throngs of enthusiastic attendees. 

Though he used painfully diplomatic language, Stewart essentially told Maddow that his detractors missed the point of the rally:

"Whatever you put out, you can only control your intention ... So, when ... people that I respect are perceiving it as something that we didn't perceive it as, sort of, either two or three things. One is, we were inartful in the way that we conceived it and presented it, our intention was wrong or off, not clear, or it's being misperceived."

Stewart used the majority of his Maddow appearance to elaborate on the critique of the divisive, uncivilized culture of cable news that he said was "the point" of his rally.

"My problem is, it's become tribal," Stewart said. "And if you have 24-hour networks that focus -- their job is to highlight the conflict between two sides."

The "Daily Show" host laid blame on CNN for playing a major role in creating the contentious cable climate. 

"CNN sort of started it," Stewart said. "They had this idea that, you know, the fight in Washington is Republicans and Democrats, so why don't we isolate that and we'll stand back here." 

Stewart also called out MSNBC for taking part in an ideological "arms race" with Fox. He criticized the network's coverage of the Tea Party and a dismissive attempt "to delegitimize" the Conservative movement by focusing on its fringes.

Stewart has issues with CNN and MSNBC, but he told Maddow that he and his fellow "Daily Show" staffers have a "special place in our hearts for Fox."  

"I think the brilliance of Fox is they've delegitimized the idea of editorial authority while exercising incredible editorial authority, which is its amazing," Stewart said. "And they also have the game that, 'They're all out to get us,' so any criticism of them can be filtered through the idea that its persecution." 

Maddow and Stewart's discussion focused on the politics of the cable news business, but surprisingly, they didn't talk about last week's controversy over MSNBC host Keith Olbermann's campaign contributions to Democrats. In the nearly hourlong conversation that aired on Maddow's show, the pair of pundits didn't find time to address the temporary suspension of Maddow's "colleague and friend." 

Watch the uncut video of Maddow's conversation with Stewart below:

The New York Times columnist spent his six day vacation on Deadman's Cay -- a tiny, remote island in the Bahamas.

"Should I cook you dinner?" he asks a terrified gecko. "I will not cook you for dinner." Long pause. "You are invited, though."

The four-minute video piece, entitled Paradise or Prison, was shot on a handheld flipcam, adding a shaky, verite style to the proceedings.

"They built Alcatraz on an island too," Carr says, pointing at the camera. "We've reached the end of the island, all this is mine! All of it I say!"

bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper