Scott: You spend a lot of time in the book pointing out problems, or what you perceive as problems, on the Internet yet you have a blog to promote the book, you blog on Amazon (which you also criticize in the book) and we have exchanged numerous emails. How is that not hypocrisy? What are the three best things about the Internet, in your opinion?
Andrew: I’m not against blogs as self-marketing tools for the sale of physical products such as books. Instead, what I object to are amateur blogs as a substitute for reliable journalism and newspapers. Nor do I ever criticize email, which I think is a very valuable communications tool. In fact, I’m anything but a Luddite. I own four computers, spend hours on the Internet everyday and couldn’t have written Cult without either the Internet or a computer.
Three best things about the Internet: email, professional podcasts (BBC, NPR) and Soccernet.com.
Scott: You make a bunch of what I'd call leaps of logic. For example, you attribute the problems of newspapers (lay-offs, ad revenue cuts) directly to the popularity of the Web. Isn't that a bit simplistic? You dismiss blogs as being too partisan and quoting too many extremists while seemingly ignoring that television shows do that all the time?
Andrew: I don’t think that the only reason for the decline of newspapers is the emergence of the Internet. But it is one important reason. Newspapers would certainly be in a healthier state without Craigslist. They would also be more read if we weren’t all engaged in writing and reading narcissistic and irrelevant blogs.
I don’t think mainstream shows like Meet the Press, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer or Face the Nation are too partisan. Nor is BBC's Newsnight or the discussion shows on C-SPAN or many other news shows on local stations (although they tend to be a bit inane). And, in comparison with many blogs, even shows like Crossfire and Hannity and Colmes – which I find politically repulsive — appears relatively restrained.
Scott: On what are you basing these two assertions?
a) These days, kids can't tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com . For these Generation Y utopians, every posting is just another person's account of the truth; every fiction is just another person's version of the truth; every fiction is just another person's version of the facts.
Article comments
1 - Ian Johnson
That is a great interview - I find both sides of this debate extremely interesting to regard.
You might also be interested in this article on Larry Sanger's Citizendium blog review of Keen's book.
Thanks again for your article.
- Ian Johnson, Out Now
2 - SCott Butki
Andrew Keen is on the Colbert Report tonite.
3 - John W. Ratcliff
I think you may be right, Keen is simply taking an absurd position to sell his book. I would so *love* to 'debate' him.
My first question would be, "Why don't you believe in the right to free speech?"
As far as self-publishing goes, our most famous of Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, was a self-made man, without a formal education, and changed the world through self-publishing.
Blogs are as American as apple pie and this British tart Keen needs to realize that his country already lost that war
4 - VL
Keen spends all that time on the Internet and he's never heard the term "troll"?
5 - Scott Butki
You noticed that too, did you? I thought that was odd as well.