At last weekend's NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDIA REFORM, the Free Press folks asked me to bring together a cross-section of our fair city's movers and shakers for a panel called "BIG NEWS IN BOSTON: THE STATE OF BOSTON MEDIA." (You can stream the entire panel here or download it below.) These things typically turn into genteel supper-club conversations at best, and circle jerks at worst.

In 2009, we got used to seeing angry mobs descend on public forums with vengeance in their hearts. So for anyone who'd been to a town-hall forum on health care, the scene at Boston's Old South Church on January 5 was eerily familiar -- an older audience, larger than you'd expect (the organizers put it at 400-plus), venting its collective spleen at hapless bureaucrats.