Had a fun conversation with Fred Rascoe of Lost in the Stacks: the Research Librarian Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio Show, out of Georgia Tech University, broadcasting on WREK Atlanta. We talked about copyright, creativity, and my book Who Invented Oscar Wilde?
Yesterday, the world lost one of the great journalists, and great human beings, who have shaped our thinking in the last half century. American correspondent Christopher Dickey died in Paris at the age of 68. I will not attempt to eulogize, or even summarize his contributions to reportage and literature. There are dozens, or more likely hundreds, far better suited to that task, and who will doubtless attend to it. For starters, his colleague Barbie Latza Nadeau, wrote a beautiful tribute for The Daily Beast.
But because Chris was an old family friend, and because he was so gracious, he was kind enough to be the subject of the first podcast interview for this blog when it launched in 2012. We talked for over an hour about journalism and security in the digital age, and he is such a polymath that it was no easy job deciding what to cut for the roughly 30-minute conversation that was ultimately published. I listened to the interview again this morning, and, unsurprisingly, Chris’s insight remains instructive, even in a world that has changed so dramatically in eight years. I wish I could ask him new questions, but that only puts me in a very, very long line. I will always be grateful to Chris for this kindness, and others, and wanted to re-post the interview today upon learning this sad news. My sincere condolences to his family and to so many who knew and loved him.
Archery photo source by: daseaford
Andrew Keen’s new book, The Internet is Not the Answer (Atlantic Monthly Press), goes on sale today. This is the third book Keen has written about the Internet and digital-age culture. A native of London, Keen first became an Internet entrepreneur in the US with the founding of Audiocafe.com in 1995, and this new book cites his own personal conversion from early evangelist of techno-utopian ideas to an observer with a more critical view of how and why the evolution of the Web is failing to fulfill many of its founding ideals. Through first-hand accounts and solid research, Keen describes how some of the most influential technology leaders abandoned the egalitarian and democratizing goals of the Internet in favor of business strategies that have produced, and will continue to produce, a winner-take-all-economy that only serves to exacerbate wealth stratification throughout the market. While economics are the central theme of this new book, Keen also discusses culture, sociology, and in particular privacy, saying that we are voluntarily creating a surveillance state that would be the envy of the East German Stasi.
Keen believes, as I do, that government must play a role — that if we naively think the Internet obviates the role of regulation and law enforcement through representative government, that we are only empowering an oligarchy and not ourselves. The Internet is Not the Answer is an approachable read for anyone with no prior knowledge of digital-age issues, and for all its seriousness and dire warnings, Keen’s writing is lighthearted, personal, at times very funny, and is ultimately optimistic.
For more information about Andrew, visit www.ajkeen.com.
The Internet is Not the Answer is reviewed here by Michael Harris for The Washington Post.
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