Stuff to Read (About the Media)

So, I've been working toward the monthly deadline this week, hence the silence today. I don't expect I'll be all that available tomorrow either, so I'm going to suggest a few pieces of reading material to fill the void. (There is kind of a theme here, thought it happened coincidentally.)

The New York Times ran a page-one Critic's Notebook piece yesterday about the growing prevalence of vulgarities in pop music. It might have been a bit more intriguing if the author, Times music critic Jon Pareles, had turned his pen on himself, so to speak, and assayed the connection between the existence of stories like this and the decline of mainstream media (because prudish newspapers won't print naughty words, see?), but it's still worth a few minutes of your time.

Over at Jalopnik there's some worthy coverage regarding The Detroit News's decision to edit the online version of a car review in response to alleged complaints by an advertiser, and the author's subsequent decision to resign.

And in a similar vein, The Awl wrote about some internecine wrangling between AOL cousins TechCrunch and Moviefone. (You'll want to follow the links in that one to get the whole story.)