The debate over the accuracy of information on the Internet came to Newsnight last night. Sadly, the BBC does not offer an embeddable media player so you have to click here to watch it.
Gavin Esler set it up very gently, but the debate between Andrew Keen, possibly the Internet’s best known contrarian, and Charles Leadbeater, a proponent of the “power of mass creativity”, was predictably lively.
In his new book, The Cult of the Amateur: How today’s Internet is killing our culture, Keen takes aim at bloggers and web evangelists accusing them of
destroying culture, ruining livelihoods and threatening to make consumers of new media regress into ‘digital narcissism’. (The Observer)
Ironic, considering Keen made his living in Silicon Valley during the hi-tech boom. Keen has now become a poster boy for dissenters and a sworn enemy of bloggers and web evangelists everywhere. For a more detailed account read David Smith’s article in the Observer.
Not surprisingly, Keen came under fire from Leadbeater (Esler did a good job of remaining neutral). The two main targets of Keen’s attacks during the debate were Wikipedia and citizen journalists.
Frankly, I’m tired of folks slamming Wikipedia. It’s an easy target for the old guard. I too was a skeptic for a long time until I read the study by Nature that demonstrated Wikipedia was almost identical to the Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of accuracy. I’ve used Wikipedia several times in the last couple of years to fact check and it hasn’t let me down once yet. Given that there is far more freely available information on a typical Wikipedia page, compared to the online version of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I know which one I will use in the future.
Keen’s claim that:
the media ecosystem that has grown up over the last 50 years is being undermined by this new flattened media, which is unreliable and often deeply corrupt
is farcical. The first words that came to mind when I heard that, Rupert Murdoch.
According to Keen citizens are mindlessly consuming information without questioning its accuracy and many do not have the ability to critically sift through the information available to them. Apparently, only the mainstream media (MSM) has the ability to do that. (If it’s not clear already, I seriously resent the fact Keen questions whether I am intelligent enough to be trusted to critically analyze a news story.)
The MSM is hardly devoid of factual inaccuracies. Take the Newsnight blog for instance.
On the same night as the Keen/Leadbeater debate aired, the following appeared in the blog’s comments:
At 12:20 AM on 06 Jun 2007, John, Stockport wrote:
A couple of factual errors:
The UK government’s advice changed a few years ago from 21/14 units per week to 3-4/2-3 units per day.
You misuse the word ‘proof’ - your (at the strong end of wines) bottle of wine is not 14% proof, it’s 14% Alcohol By Volume (ABV), slightly under 25 degrees proof.
Maybe pedantic, but in the same programme, you questioned reliability of information available from other sources (The Web).
Susan Watts, Newsnight’s Science Editor, responded:
At 12:09 PM on 06 Jun 2007, Susan Watts wrote:
CORRECTION:
Oops… in my report last night on alcohol consumption I talked about a bottle of wine of “14% proof”.
As has been pointed out to me by astute viewers clearly drinking only within sensible limits last night, I should have said “14% Alcohol By Volume (ABV)”.
Apologies…
Susan Watts
Credit to Susan Watts for responding and a fine example of the benefits of the Internet. Without such an easy method of notifying Newsnight editors and correspondents of factual errors, this particular error would have almost certainly gone unnoticed at the bottom of a BBC mailbag.
The crucial point is that the MSM also make factual errors. Thankfully, the Internet now allows them to be corrected by citizen journalists.
Is there still value in having experts reporting and commenting on stories? Of course, which is partly why political blogs such as Iain Dale’s Diary, written by a former prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC)/lobbyist/political bookshop owner and MyDD.com, created by Jerome Armstrong, an American political consultant, are of such huge interest and popularity.
The beauty of the Internet is that it has enabled many more experts to cheaply and easily publish reports and commentary. Do I believe everything that Dale and Armstrong publish? Don’t be silly! But nor do I believe everything that appears in the MSM.
There will always be a market for professional journalists. I do not subscribe to the extremist views of some web evangelicals who argue the MSM will be replaced entirely by citizen journalists using the power of the Internet. A healthy democracy needs high quality journalists poking, prodding and probing public life. There will always be a need to pay citizens to perform this role, but I think it will become increasingly hard to label them.
The line between the MSM and citizen journalism is becoming more and more blurred. As members of the MSM become more comfortable interacting with citizens online, accepting criticisms, feedback and learning how to use the Internet to enrich their stories and as more citizen journalists develop their careers, the MSM and citizen journalism will become almost indistinguishable.
That moment is still a way off and there will undoubtedly be growing pains along the way, but the process has begun and unless Keen wishes to revert to a deeply authoritarian society it must continue. (Jeff Jarvis has more on this on his blog, BuzzMachine)
Clearly, this debate touched a nerve with me. I am a passionate believer in the power of the Internet and to hear someone with an attitude like Keen, especially with his strong background in Silicon Valley, flabbergasts me. I will be returning to this topic in the coming days with posts titled Morality Online: Pankhurst vs. Pammie and How the Truth Debate Affects Online Politics.
UPDATE:
Newsnight are now featuring a couple of extracts from Keen’s book on their blog. They invite you to offer your comments. Is this an indication of Newsnight’s editorial line on this matter? Given Jeremy Paxman’s apparent disdain at the mere mention of the Newsnight blog/podcast/website it is not beyond belief. However, I always get the impression he actually understands it and accepts it, but simply views it as beyond him technologically. Perhaps one of you would like to ask him?
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