The National Arts Journalism Program forum—held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art following days of local theater and cocktail parties—brought together writers and artists, bloggers and bookers and think-tankers under the umbrella title "The New Playing Field."

The field? Optimistically, it is—according to all of the panels and their moderators—green, fertile and leafy, surprisingly. And not made necessarily too dry and/or weedy due to print's supposed demise.

That, despite learning Saturday's biggest star was Tyler Green, the "Modern Art Notes" blogger who admitted to being more of a "brand" than an actual writer. And despite high-tech novelist Ellen Ullman's claim that all forms of critical thought will be moved aside so as to best deliver direct sales information the quickest. "Call it dis-inter-mediation," said Ullman of making all info concise enough to be read on the delivery system of the immediate future: your cell phone.

Most seem to think conventional print is toast. "But is that toast buttered?" asked former Philly Inquirer fine arts editor-turned-Bloomberg editor Jeff Weinstein about the continued vitality of the arts and their criticism. Weinstein sees criticism as something that's needed to complete the art form. But that print form—agreed all panelists in "The Journalists" forum—needs more traction (i.e. critics that could better report the news of the arts) and sharpness. Magazines need to do more than publish news and opinion. "Let your blogs handle the gossip" said XXL magazine editor in chief Elliot Wilson, who just hired paid bloggers at his mag to do as much. Newspapers—lose the listings. Online does it better and faster and opens your pages to lengthier reporting. Bloggers weren't left uncriticized. All agreed that speed was not equitable to accuracy in fact or opinion and that half-baked writing renders all level of media, old and new, sick. This warning was directed to both independent bloggers and bloggers writing under the aegis of a newspaper or magazine.

The New York Times' Sam Sifton urged editors to go beyond search engine optimization and the tyranny of statistics that show hot topics like "sex" getting more hits than dance reviews, while Times digital contributor Bill Goldstein, in his "Future" panel, pushed bloggers and news outlets alike to become better arbiters of our culture so that we don't leave it in the hands of commercially motivated editors like Starbucks. If arts writing is to stay in vogue it must be a sophisticated filter of critical authority.

"You have to become a curator," said Flavorpill.com co-founder Mark Mangan, who offered much of the afternoon's best advice regarding programming as a social act, the Wiki-ization of the world and the future forward technocracy of collaborative publishing sites like Digg.com and premium news filters like his own Activate site. "Everybody said when the television came out that radio would be dead, right?" quizzed Mangan on the state of great writing. "Well it isn't, is it?"

No. But what television and radio had to do with great writing, I'll never know.