The New Freedom

Friday, August 17th, 2007...3:13 pm

Steven Colbert Destroys Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen is basically in disagreement with every single thing I stand for. He’s apparently opposed to giving the masses the ability to produce art and share opinions, because he claims that hurts those who do the same thing, only with corporate backing. Although I agree with him that journalists should report the full truth without bias, it seems to me that independent bloggers writing solely out of interest in a topic, payed by AdSense dollars, would be far more neutral than those that have to worry about maintaining relations with massive corporate sponsors. It’s so obvious that Fox News reports to serve Rupert Murdoch’s conservative agenda, so Keen’s argument that corporate-backed journalists (and other corporate-backed content) is any better than independently produced content is clearly bogus. Independent films are generally better than current Hollywood crap, independent music is generally better than mainstream top 40 crap, and independent reporting is generally better than mass media news. And even if that weren’t true, the fact that people can now make a choice about what media they consume and what side of a story they choose to believe is certainly better than everybody in the country buying into whatever they’re shoving down our tubes. That’s what happened in 2000, and it’s going to be interesting to see how things have changed in 2008. I don’t think the internet has a big enough impact to get a better candidate elected yet, but who knows what it’ll be like in 2012.

Anyway, Keen is also clearly a massively smug d-bag, which makes it even more satisfying to watch Steven Colbert tear him a new asshole.