The Year in Media: Print pales amid (another) online boom

Which do you think George Allen regrets more, his use of the word “macaca,” or the invention of YouTube?

It’s a tossup, I suppose. As demonstrated by his story (or that of a possibly bigger YouTubee, Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens) and its rapid dissemination across the internet, the definitive media story of 2006 was the rise of citizen media, and the vehicles like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, blogs, and scores of others that  can be used, for free, to spread memes worldwide in less time than it takes to say “santorum.”

The flip side of that story, of course, is old media’s fumbling attempts to stay relevant in this new environment. Indeed, it’s a curious state of affairs when TIME, one of the grand-daddies of old media, declares “You“–meaning me and you and all the other personal media producers out there–”Person of the Year.” My friend Siva Vaidhyanathan, writing at MSNBC, chortles at TIME‘s pat on the back for those of us who spent 2006 “seizing the reins of the global media… and beating the pros at their own game”:

Well, thank you, Time, for hyping me, overvaluing me, using me to sell my image back to me, profiling me, flattering me, and failing to pay me. As soon as I saw myself on my local newsstand, I had to buy a copy of Time.

But 2006 was the year that saw print pale and online endeavors soar, from Google’s wallet-lightening purchase of YouTube to the boom in expenditures for online employment ads, which now show online job listings outpacing those in print by a half billion dollars. Given the trend, who can blame dead-tree media for trying extraordinary tactics–even blatant flattery–to make ends meet? Locally, that’s meant plenty of media consolidation, cost-cutting measures, and new ventures.

Story continues…A less than comprehensive run-down of local media goings-on: