Last week a friend of mine sent me a link to this New York Times review of Andrew Keen's new book "The Cult of the Amateur". Keen is often referred to as the leading contrarian and critic of Web 2.0. and ironically has his own Typepad hosted blog to discuss his disdain for blogs, social media, etc. (I wrestled with linking to his blog or not.)

This from the NYT review:

"Mr. Keen argues that what the Web 2.0 revolution is really delivering is superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment. In his view Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better. By undermining mainstream media and intellectual property rights, he says, it is creating a world in which we will live to see the bulk of our music coming from amateur garage bands, our movies and television from glorified YouTubes, and our news made up of hyperactive celebrity gossip, served up as mere dressing for advertising. This is what happens, he suggests, when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule.

I couldn't disagree more with Keen. Not because I blog. But because Keen is wrong.

I chuckle at this line: "Superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis"?

Did Web 2.0 really start this trend or even perpetuate it???

Let me point out a few items for you Andrew. Media outlets such as newspapers, television, radio talk shows, and the like raced towards the lowest common denominator in their coverage long before blogs and Web. 2.0 were a pipe dream.

Ever heard of USA Today? This newspaper has done more to dumb down print journalism than anything. Is there any substance or depth to the USA Today. Unfortunately, the USA Today has had a pretty large impact upon newspapers as a whole across the country. I recall back in the early '90s, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution brought in a new managing editor from USA Today to try to remake the paper. It worked of course.

The AJC is almost unreadable now with its vapid columns on nothing and over-reliance on news wires. What with some of the corruption at Atlanta City Hall and other government officials over the years, the AJC should have been filled with outstanding investigative journalism for years. Instead, those of us here in Atlanta have to rely upon a free alternative weekly, Creative Loafing, for any semblance of real journalism.

This doesn't even mention how slow many mainstream dailies are at responding to breaking news, even on their websites. Almost every day I see an article on the AJC.com website about a news item I had read elsewhere in previous days. Why go online if you are going to be late with the news???

How about televised news? While many conservatives have heralded the rise of FoxNews as an antidote to the supposed left-leaning CNN, FoxNews has mostly contributed to hackery and bombasity. Ace at conservative blog Ace of Spades has this to say about FoxNews:

I think I'm giving up on FoxNews. The channel has become far too aggressively lowbrow, stupid, and carnival-barker-ish for my tastes. My tastes aren't exactly elevated, but I do have limits, and FoxNews has violated mine.

Almost every time I have the channel on I feel stupid, because it's so clearly chasing the stupid demographic. And I'm not part of that demographic, and do not wish to be treated as part of that demographic.

Maybe this is how it's been getting ratings all along and I never noticed. Well, I'm noticing now. I'd rather watch friggin' CNN than this televised coloring book for mental defectives.

I'll still watch Hume, Wallace, and Red Eye, of course. And O'Reilly every now and again, when he's on about some outrage or has a good guest. But as a general matter, that's it for me.

No wonder airports and hospitals and hotels run CNN and only CNN. There is political bias, and then there is bias against the aggressively, obnoxiously submoronic. I can't blame anyone for having the latter bias.

If anything, Web 2.0 is somewhat mimicking the MSM in its superficiality. There is no denying that there are a lot of bad, superficial, vapid, poorly written blogs out there. However, their is far greater diversity in Web 2.0 than in the MSM. Yes, there is in-depth reporting and analysis in the NYT, WSJ, Economist, and BBC. But their isn't much more beyond those outlets. I challenge Andrew Keen or anyone else to name more than 20 mainstream media outlets that contain in-depth reporting and analysis that are published at least weekly.

However, I can rattle off over dozes of blogs with some serious depth and intellect, with far great diversity than the MSM. (See my list below) Does the blogosphere have flaws? Sure. But it is the power of "The Network" that makes the blogosphere something to contend with.

I really scoff at Keen's take on the music industry. As far as music goes, I have a hard time seeing how the indentured servitude model of the music industry has created better music. When is the last time a major record label released a truly great album? The rise of "independent" labels and new channels of distribution have been good, not bad. Not only good for the consumer with better quality and diversity, but far better for the artists.

I've never liked all the triumphalist talk about the Internet being the hope of humanity and all that nonsense. But I dislike even more so-called experts and elites claiming a monopoly on "real journalism" and news. And I'm not alone in this belief. Just check out the continued circulation decline of most daily newspapers to see that many others are in agreement with me.

Is Web 2.0 harming the establishment media, as Keen claims? Yep, you bet. Are we dumber as a result? Well, that's up to us finally, isn't it?

I can of course rattle off tons more - this list took me less than 5 minutes to compile and I was not striving for ideological balance nor many non-political or non-current affairs blogs. Tell me some of your favorites in the comments below and I will add them to the list. And I am putting the challenge out there to compile a larger and better list of mainstream media outlets that provide in-depth coverage and analysis on at least a weekly basis.