Think of the phrase “old-school media party,” and you could be excused for conjuring an image of smoky rooms, clever chatter, and martinis the size of bird baths. Crusty newspaper types, and knowing asides about who’s up and who’s down around town. There’d be undone ties, a couple of missed deadlines, and maybe a spittoon.
And sure enough, the party that uncorked at Super Burrito on Wednesday night in Greenwich Village was in fact an attempt to replicate that kind of bash: there were cigarettes on the tables (largely unsmoked), margaritas (more dainty than dangerous), and a crush of newsfolk, though probably less hard-bitten than hard-wired.
The occasion was a party for a new journalism concern, Breaker Media, whose founder is Lachlan Cartwright, a gregarious Australian whose company has joined a mini-crush of other media start-ups launched in recent years, and promised, in an invite, an evening populated with “hacks, flacks and some execs.”
And sure enough, on Wednesday night, Mr. Cartwright was doing his very best to summon the spirit of a bygone era, wearing a fedora with a press card wedged in the brim and hiring a mother-and-daughter team of psychics to sit and give readings to reporters and others. (Their predictions, made outside under a waning moon, were surprisingly cheery, considering the seemingly constant challenges in the industry.)
“I might as well have called this Broken Media because it’s almost broken me,” said Mr. Cartwright, standing atop the bar and spicing his remarks with a few friendly profanities. “Financially, mentally and physically, but I’m having the time of my life.”
Mr. Cartwright, 43, comes from a tabloid background. He has worked at the New York Post and The Sun in London — as well as a stint as the executive editor at the National Enquirer and Radar Online, where he became acquainted with “catch-and-kill” stories, whereby the Enquirer bought up the rights to unflattering stories on famous people and then killed them to protect their reputations. One of those people was Donald J. Trump, a onetime constant tabloid figure — and friend to the Enquirer’s former publisher — who now has another job, which also attracts a lot of attention.
Sure enough, on Wednesday many of those crammed in Super Burrito — a tiny brick-walled space with a total of two booths — had spent more than a little time covering the president, including Brian Stelter of CNN. He pulled out a laptop midway through the evening, but still said he appreciated the effort to bring ink-stained wretches, TV talking heads, and true digital natives together for a party.
“Maybe I’m just getting older, but I don’t see these people as often as I used to,” said Mr. Stelter, adding, that “this scene has atomized in such a way that it’s hard to know if there’s any center.”
“And one of the reasons I read Breaker is for the party reports,” Mr. Stelter said. “He’s very good with the boldface names.”
Indeed, the party drew a smattering of gossip specialists, like Mara Siegler from Page Six, and a few individuals who have found themselves on those very same pages, including Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, the so-called “fake heiress” who conned her way to a glamorous life — and a larceny conviction — a few years back.
Now out of prison, Ms. Sorokin said she has mixed feelings about the Fourth Estate.
“I’ve had some good experiences, and I’ve had some bad experiences,” she said, without elaborating on either. She later made a beeline for Lis Smith, the Democratic political consultant, who said that the party was indeed “a throwback,” and an interesting mix.
“A lot of people just like drinking, gossiping about media, politics, life, prison, in a way that you don’t have in most day-to-day conversations anymore,” Ms. Smith said.
Ms. Sorokin was there with Juda Engelmayer, a publicist who specializes in crisis communications, and who said Mr. Cartwright was “a reliable reporter for me” in a previous P.R. job he held.
Reliable how?
“I’ve had clients that he’s helped, and he’s done nice stories for,” Mr. Engelmayer said. “And then I became a reliable source for him on information that he needs, and with things that I know and things I do.”
Part of Breaker’s editorial focus is downtown Manhattan, and the party’s location — at the teeming, pub-crawl corner of Sullivan and Bleecker Streets — was intentional: Mr. Cartwright, who refers to himself as “a kid from the Melbourne suburbs,” has long lived here, whilst retaining an ample Australian accent, and that continent’s unique verbiage.
Mr. Cartwright, in fact, explained his mission as telling “the punters something they don’t know.” (The term punters means average readers, Mr. Cartwright explained, not kickers. “I really should get a Breaker translator,” he said.)
The fare wasn’t exactly Elaine’s — though Elaine’s isn’t even Elaine’s anymore — tables were topped with burritos wrapped in foil, guacamole and chips.
Fitting a party full of media people, there were several reporters who report on reporters, including Max Tani of Semafor, and Oliver Darcy, the founder of Status, a pair of new news sites, each founded by refugees from so-called legacy media companies like Bloomberg Media, CNN, and The New York Times.
And, not surprisingly, some of the talk bent toward the always looming threats to journalism, such as the Trump administration’s aggressive stances, and A.I.
“I think that journalists being under attack has certainly unified everyone with a common purpose,” said Mr. Darcy, who also noted a “boom of independent journalists right now,” often facing long, tough hours. “And so I think people come together to support one another. Even though you might compete, you want everyone to succeed around you.”
David Weigel, a political reporter for Semafor, echoed that, saying Super Burrito “was the least pessimistic media room I’ve been in, in, I don’t know, nine months.”
“If you’re in D.C., the conversation always turns to, ‘Have you heard what happened to this media company?’” Mr. Weigel said. “So this is a nice change.”
Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering politics, pop culture, lifestyle and the confluence of all three.
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