A new media startup goes for old-school flavor. And burritos.

Think of the phrase “old-fashioned media party” and you could be excused for conjuring up an image of smoke-filled rooms, intelligent chatter and birdbath-sized martinis. Crispy newspaper types and side information about who’s up and who’s down in town. There would be some losing ties, a few missed deadlines and maybe a spitball.

And sure enough, the party at Super Burrito Wednesday night in Greenwich Village was actually an attempt to replicate that kind of party: There were cigarettes on the tables (largely unsmoked), margaritas (more delicate than dangerous), and a crowd of journalists, though probably less bitten than wired.

The occasion was a party for a new journalism company, Breaker Media, whose founder is Lachlan Cartwright, a gregarious Australian whose company joined a mini-crush of other media start-ups launched in recent years, and promised, in an invitation, an evening populated by “hacks, flacks and a few execs”.

And sure enough, on Wednesday night, Mr. Cartwright was doing his best to invoke the spirit of a bygone era, wearing a fedora with a press card stuck in the brim and hiring a mother-daughter team of psychics to sit around and give readings to reporters and others. (Their predictions, made outdoors under a waning moon, were surprisingly cheerful, given the industry’s seemingly constant challenges.)

“I might as well have called it Broken Media because it almost broke me,” Mr. Cartwright said, standing at the top of the bar and peppering his remarks with a few friendly profanities. “Financially, mentally and physically, but I’m having the time of my life.”