First up an admission – I haven’t read Andrew Keen‘s The Cult of the Amateur. But I have read the reaction to it and the debate it has generated.

This posting by Tom Coates is a powerful indictment of the book:

… his opinion cannot do any good, cannot change anything for the better, but in its decrying of the nascent environment of millions of people finding their voices for the first time, he can get nothing but attention, media coverage and book-sales. It’s not an appeal to better standards, it’s not an appeal to quality or tradition. It has no aspirations to honour. It’s disingenuous to the core, manipulative of the people, anti-progressive, cynical and hypocritical.

Enough said.