I got calls from two NPR shows on Thursday asking me to appear to debate Andrew Keen. Man, hire his publicist. That debate shtick has worked well with personal appearances across the country and now broadcast. I refused both requests. I said the book is just plain bad. It’s sloppily researched and written. It is link- and PR-bait disguised as a polemic. If it were intelligently, thoughtfully presented, I’d be happy to talk about these ideas. But it’s not. The irony is that Keen accuses us all of being hacks but his book is just a hack. I told them I chose not to play into this publicity mill on my blog and wouldn’t do so on the air, either. Here’s the interesting part: They each said they’d heard just this same perspective from a lot of people they’d called looking for debaters. There’s no conspiracy here; we all simply said no. And one of the shows decided to change its topic and talk about the future of the web instead. Hurray. Quality will out.
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