Paul and Melissa wore the same t-shirt to work one day, both with flair and panache.

Our very own Paul Woolmington went toe-to-toe with Mark Cuban (HDNET), Michael Wolff (Vanity Fair), Randy Falco (AOL), Cathie Black (Hearst), Joe Uva (Univision), Nigel Morris (Isobar), and other brand-name panelists at Advertising Week’s Future of Media discussion on Monday morning.

Cuban proclaimed the internet dead: “It’s not where all the excitement will happen over the next five years.”

Cuban proclaimed newspapers dead: “Give up….  File for bankruptcy.”

Falco and Black (respectively) disagreed with him, but their quotes are pretty flaccid in comparison.

Uva asserted that ad agencies are not, in fact, unnecessary middle men.

But Woolmington said that the agencies need to start providing real value or risk fading into irrelevancy — the Nike+ collaboration between Nike and Apple is a great example of how to create a proprietary branded experience, complete with a proprietary online audience, without the help of any middle men whatsoever.

What looks to be a fairly complete set of notes from the Future of Media discussion can be found here, if you’re interested.

The Guardian recently featured an article about fairtrade denim brands. An interesting and thought provoking read which changed my mind about a recent purchase.

The facts are startling - the cotton industry accounts for only 2.5% of all farm land yet gets well into double digits when you look at use of pesticides and insecticides, plus concerns over water usage and human rights abuses when it comes to manufacture.

Worth a read.