Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur is a blistering tirade against “Web 2.0,” blogs, YouTube, citizen journalists, and the like. Keen champions professional journalists as bastions of truth; however, in an off-handed comment, Keen admitted that his own book wasn’t fact-checked. Accordingly, the book fails to fulfill its own calls for accuracy and objectivity.
Keen puts forth a number of untenable claims about the economic impact of user-generated content. For instance, he refers to $331,000 dollars from Frito-Lay that was "sucked" out of the economy (p. 62). If you have an ownership stake in that company, then that $331,000 was saved, not lost. He accuses YouTube and MySpace of “costing us a fortune” (p. 27), but neglects to mention that YouTube was bought for $1.65 billion and MySpace was bought for $580 million. The total is over 2 billion in revenue from these two ventures alone. Perhaps they did cost a fortune, but they made fortunes as well. Keen also takes issue with Google, but neglects to mention that it is the number one company to work for in 2007, according to Fortune magazine. (Perhaps because the book already had gone to press.) Many of Keen’s arguments are similarly selective readings of current events.
Keen portrays the media’s adherence to truth in absolute terms, with statements such as this one: "When an article runs under the banner of a respected newspaper, we know that it has been weighed by a team of seasoned editors with years of training, assigned to a qualified reporter, researched, fact-checked, edited and proofread, and backed by a respected news organization vouching for its truth and accuracy." (p. 53) Well-respected media outlets have gotten stories wrong in the past and printed fiction as fact. Cases in point: Jayson Blair at the New York Times, and Stephen Glass at the New Republic.
Keen puts forth various examples of how "Web 2.0" or "on-line culture" played a part in fraud, deceit and just plain lying; however, many of the examples he offers show professionals, not amateurs, abusing the new media. He mentions Michael Hiltzik (p. 76), Lee Siegel (p. 76) and Adnan Hajj (p. 82). It’s pretty clear that the people who commit these acts should be held accountable. Keen writes of consequences for them, but he insists on blaming the technology rather than the person abusing it. These imbroglios also undermine his own notion of a “qualified reporter,” mentioned on page 53 of the book and in the paragraph above.
Keen writes of one encounter: ". . . we got onto the subject of amateur journalism. ‘So what do you think distinguishes blogger from professional journalists?’ I asked him." (p. 49) Curiously, Keen makes no distinction between bloggers and citizen journalists. This opacity might come from an attempt to equivocate or from a simple lack of knowledge.
Keen’s book attempts to draw connections between user-created content and vanity, but it appears that vanity is a burgeoning part of our culture. "I’m hot ’cause I’m fly. / You ain’t cause you not," proclaims MIMS, on his hit track "This Is Why I’m Hot." Even Beyonce said she was “tired of being sexy,” showing a penchant for irony that is rare in a pop star and perhaps appreciable to Keen.
Keen really has struck a nerve with his book, and he might very well be the most-hated man in the blogosphere right now. I have set up a site, so that fellow critics can consolidate arguments, evidence and comments in one place: www.keenrebuttal.org . It’s a way to respond to Keen by using those very same instruments that he loaths. (You’ll see some of the same material as above.) Take a look, register, contribute, and drop me a line. And please, provide citations and links.
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