Isn't it ironic?

I've just started work on a story based on a book called "The Cult of the Amateur". It's about how the Web 2.0 revolution - that's blogging, YouTube-ing, Wiki-ing, MySpace-ing etc is undermining those of us 'professionals' who bring you the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth through the mainstream media. Here's a snippet:

I call it the great seduction. The Web 2.0 revolution has peddled the promise of
bringing more truth to more people - more depth of information, more global
perspectives, more unbiased opinion from dispassionate observers. But this is
all a smokescreen. 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 judgement. The information business is
being transformed by the Internet into the sheer noise of a hundred million
bloggers all simultaneously talking about themselves.

It's ironic I should be writing this post, as I'm contributing to the 'noise', but at the same time, I'm an actual real live journalist discussing something I hope will prompt informed debate. It's also ironic that Mr Andrew Keen, the book's author, has a blog called www.cultoftheamateur.com and hosts a podcast - two things he argues are bringing about the end of "the very traditional institutions that have helped to create out news, our music, our literature, our television shows, and our movies."

So far it's an interesting read and I urge you to check out his blog to see what he's talking about. While I disagree with some of his arguments - I take exception to being called a monkey banging away on a typewriter and I couldn't care less that downloading is hurting the pockets of Hollywood executives - I do defend my skills as an objective-as-I-can-be journalist. There is a lot of crap out there in blogland, there's also a lot of good. I'm looking forward to getting into the heart of this book and talking to blog-Gods like Russell Brown and t'others. And will be making a lot of noise about it.