Is the Internet Good for Writers?

RU Sirius asks ten writers whether the internet is good for writers and gets back an eclectic range of responses. I like Mark Dery's best.

Memo to Michael Wolff

In the October 2007 issue of Vanity Fair, an advertising catalog occasionally interpenetrated wih articles, Michael Wolff, their media columnist, plugs his new entrepreneurial venture, an online news site, while also free associating about the decline of broadcast and print news and the ways the internet has transformed the dissemination of information.

What is most striking about Wolff's piece is his naked contempt for the potential customers for his venture. A single reporter, Wolff tells us, is superior to "millions of morons, who form the critical mass of that central Internet genre, user-created content, sharing their drivel." "Digg, which ranks news on the basis of user votes, with the help of random passerby and passionate imbeciles." "poor Katie Couric could be defined as a stupid card trick."

Contempt for your audience is not conducive to creating a successful business when your goal is to intuit what they desire and then supply it.

Today's Epiphany

A comment made by PlasticGypsies to the debate between Andrew Keen and Emily Bell at the Guardian Unlimited:

The internet isn't good or bad. You (or actually, the influences that mechanise your behaviour) make up what good and bad is; otherwise people wouldn't argue. There is no good and bad, just people who see what is good for them. Entirely subjective.