O’Brien had been with CNN for 16 years and was let go in December whe the entire Science and Technology department was shut down. Then, a plane landed in the Hudson, and a plane crashed in Buffalo — and O’Brien blogged and tweeted it all to huge response.

“I was pretty bowled over by the response…I just sort of sat down and did what I would do if I was still at CNN…and put it on my blog. It just bowled me over how the world beat a path to my blog. There’s a lesson in all of that, that first of all people are thirsty for information from sources they can trust. And they will seek you out.”

As more and more experienced journalists find themselves out of work O’Brien wonders whether we will see a collection of individual niche reporting sites on the web, such as his blog, that may someday find a way to band together. Also, he says we shouldn’t be scared of flying. Also! How will we pay for newspapers online?! O’Brien gives us his take. You can listen to the podcast live every morning at 9amET on BlogTalkRadio.com/mediabistro and call in at 646-929-0321. You can also subscribe to the iTunes feed of the podcast by clicking the “iTunes” button.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

King and his wife flank the Trumps

The short hallway between the “Pool Room” and bar acted as a sort of cosmic, generational media portal last night at the Four Seasons, where a pair of cocktail parties — one celebrating Larry King‘s 50 years in broadcasting (a.k.a the “old people room”), the other celebrating the New York Observer‘s redesigned paper and Web site (a.k.a the “kids room”) — were in full, boozy, media-centric swing.

In the “Old People Room”: King and his television and famous New York pals, like Joan Rivers, Donald and Melania Trump, the View‘s Barbara Walters (at one point Trump and Walters were just feet from each other, but didn’t appear to acknowledge each other) and Joy Behar, Campbell Brown, Mario Cuomo, Lou Dobbs, Phil Donahue and Marlo Thomas, Tina Brown, Jeff Greenfield, Ron Howard, Time Inc. managing editor Jim Kelly, Keith Kelly, Ray Kelly, Oprah B.F.F. Gayle King, Calvin Klein, Time Warner chief Dick Parsons, Sandra Bernhard, Jerry Stiller, Arliss actor Robert Wuhl, Mort Zuckerman, American Morning‘s newly-installed Kiran Chetry, Glenn Beck, Montel Williams, James Carville, Tom Wolfe, Andy Rooney and artist Peter Max, whose colorful rendering of King served as the room’s centerpiece.

In the “Kids Room”: 23-year-old Observer owner Jared Kushner held court with twentysomething bloggers and their youthful bosses, like Gawker’s Choire Sicha, Radar‘s Jeff Bercovici and Maer Roshan, Page Six‘s Corynne Steindler, Slate‘s Jacob Weisberg, Domino‘s Deborah Needleman, WWD‘s Irin Carmon, and HuffPo’s Julia Allison, Katharine Thomson and Rachel Sklar. Fittingly, Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, chose the Observer party over King’s.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Weird 24 hours at CNN. First, a shooting at CNN HQ in Atlanta yesterday, which killed a woman. Then the news that Miles O’Brien and Soledad O’Brien — not married and/or related [above right] — co-hosts of CNN’s American Morning, had been ousted from hosting duties, replaced by CBS vet John Roberts and ex-Fox Newser Kiran Chetry [above left].

Chetry, you’ll recall, was unceremoniously let go by Fox News after a scandalously-failed contract renegotiation, after which Fox leaked a memo blasting Chetry’s agent and inferring Chetry had demanded a spot Fox & Friends, which would’ve required a current host’s firing. Chetry was immediately hired by CNN and filled in for Soledad on American Morning the next day.

TVNewser reports Soledad will become anchor of CNN’s “Special Investigations” unit.

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