The clash between legacy media and new media came alive Saturday as David Carr, of the New York Times, and Markos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, argued about the relevance, the importance and the place of the revered paper.

While the debate got heated, both sides were civil as Carr debated Moulitsas’ arguement whether or not the New York Times still filled its esteemed journalistic role.

Moulitsas stated that he likes traditional media outlets and uses them for a lot of the content posted to The Daily Kos.  However, he believes that many of the issues at hand in the new business are based on those entities simply not doing their job.

“Most people just want traditional media to do their job,” he said. “There’s criticism, but that doesn’t mean we want them to go away.”

Carr said new media outlets, such as Twitter, could provide information, but could not compete with the type of investigative, world spanning journalism The New York Times aims to provide.

“Accountability reporting would be in retreat in a world with no New York Times,” Carr said.

Moulitsas insinuated the importance of traditional media has been exaggerated. He also pointed out mistakes the Times had made in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.  He quipped that the New York Times should “stop being a stenographer for power.”

He also said the role of bloggers has been under-appreciated. “Daily Kos knew about Sarah Palin because we covered her election campaign two years before,” he said. Moulitsas also said NBC news was having to look her up on Wikipedia while the writers for Daily Kos already knew about some of her controversial stances, such as her participation in the Alaska Independence Party.

Ultimately, the title of the panel was misleading. It played out with two sides debating the role and importance of a single newspaper. Instead of talking about what the media landscape will look like in a post New York Times world, it devolved into an argument about which medium was more crucial. Instead of looking into the future, the panel settled for arguing about the past.