After a glorious bloodbath in which Byron Calame lost most of his extremities to the persuasive sword of Jack Shafer, we realize that we are not the only ones who don't care where the New York Times gets its stories. (Well, except for when they get their stories from their archives — and even then we only care because of how ridiculously easy it is for their "unusually intelligent, well-educated" readers to scarf it down.)

Also, we learn that because of blogs and Jim Romenesko, Calame's interest in his own paper is over-played, and a public editor is more or less unnecessary.

Calame's bloodless performance convinces some (Timothy Noah for one) that the Times public editor slot should be scrapped. A generation ago, the job of beating the press fell to two journalism reviews, a few alternative newspaper columnists, and several hundred pressure groups. Today, says Noah, nobody who navigates to Romenesko or tours the blogs thinks of the press and the New York Times as underexamined institutions.

Our hope would be that no media outlet would go underexamined in this huge pool of media bloggers and critics who spend their days asking, "how could there possibly be a purpose to the existence of anyone besides myself?" To which we remind our dear friends of the need for other people, no matter how seemingly useless, to exist.

If there is nobody left at the Times to make a show out of examining the paper, there would be nobody left for Jack Shafer to destroy in 1,000 words or less. And then what will we have left to live for?

The Public Editor as Duffer [Jack Shafer, Slate]