Sat, 08/18/2007 - 10:08am — vastleft
I've got your wanker right here:
Andrew Keen visits The Colbert Report to flog his book, "The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture."
The money quote (sans Colbert's riffs) about those debbil bloggers:
They make stuff up, they're anonymous. Do you think there were weapons of mass destruction? Where did you learn that? And you're on the Internet all day? I think you're supporting my argument. I think we need objective, professional journalists who responsibly collect the news, rather than anonymous bloggers who are often in the pay of corporations or foreign governments. That's the crisis of this medium, that's what's so troubling.
Damn those bloggers and their phony yellowcake, aluminum-tubes, and weapons-of-mass-destruction-related-program-activities bloggity posts! Why didn't we listen to what the professionals said!?
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fixed some typos
"the cult of the blowhard: how today's talking head, government line parroting punditry have destroyed america's credibility at home and abroad". there, that's better.
Interesting, too...
... that he says the problems with the internets are:
1. No one gets paid
2. Everyone's on the payroll of a corporation or foreign government
This simple logic is too much for us amateurish, reality-based types.
VL, did you see my post on Keen?
The Cult of the Expert.
I missed the Colbert appearance, thanks for the vid.
shystee,
I missed that one first time around. Excellent analysis!
It is striking -- in that "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" kind of way -- that Web 2.0 is blossoming just as the mainstream media / entertainment complex is completely running aground.
I think one of Keen's themes (tacit or otherwise) is worth discussing -- whether and how netroots folks can or should be compensated. But he starts from the thoroughly disreputable position that the professional experts are rich with quality and what comes from the crowd and from shining lights within the crowd is crap. Put a year of Digby up against a year of Bill Kristol, and if you think the latter wins that test, be careful not to choke on those Beltway cocktail weenies.