Maybe one of the few questions left about cable news is whether a channel attempting to build its brand around neutral reporting and balanced conversation can succeed.

As 2010 began, several existential questions hung over the American magazine industry.

Most people still listen to news, talk and music for at least a little while every week, and they do most of this listening through traditional broadcast, or “terrestrial,” radio. This is where the audience is largest. Yet this is where the profit and revenue are under the most pressure. Many stations have left the air and some owners of multiple stations have entered bankruptcy.

In a year that saw the inauguration of the country’s first black president and the arrival on the Supreme Court of the first Hispanic justice, the ethnic news media managed to stay in relatively good health, despite the worst recession since the Great Depression, although some bruises and scars were picked up along the way.