The Beet was on-hand for the sold-out, lines down the hall of the Union Square ‘W’ hotel mixer to celebrate Rafat Ali and PaidContent.
BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis was one of the 500-plus bloggers, journalists, and media elite crowd, that included Gawker‘s Nick Denton and the New York Times’ Arthur Sulzberger. Jeff told us that Rafat’s PaidContent is the posterchild for the future of journalism – which he states that "small is the new big."
Darn! We tried to tape the evening’s presentation, a dialogue between Rafat and Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. but didn’t take the time to get a proper sound feed for our video camera. But we were pleased to find this post by Donna Bogatin summarizing Sulzberger’s comments on ZDNet.
Video Update: We have just posted some of Sulzberger’s comments taped by Beet.TV
BuzzMachine has a very interesting analysis of Sulzberger’s comments and reflections on the controversy surrounding the Times publication of an article about U.S. government monitoring of international banking. Sulzberger referenced the dust-up with the Administration and spoke about it in relation to the publication of Pentagon Papers some 30 years ago and the legal issue surrounding "prior restraint" in the age of online publishing. Jeff Jarvis puts it all in perspective.
CONGRATS RAFAT AND YOUR TEAM ON ALL YOU’VE ACCOMPLISHED. IT IS INCREDIBLY INSPIRING — Kate and Andy
— Kate Lyon
The media elite showed up to pay homage to Rafat Ali and his crew: Left to right, blogger mogel Nick Denton, the pioneering "buzzmachine" himself Jeff Jarvis and Spencer Reiss, of WIRED magazine.
Rafat Ali, PaidContent, Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine, Nick Denton, Gawker, Arthur Sulzberger, New York Times
