Ken Wheaton of Ad Age is not impressed by Chris Anderson. In fact, he says the Wired editor, circuit speaker and author is “less intellectually curious than George ‘Dubya’ Bush.”
In response to an interview with Anderson in Spiegel–where Anderson says he doesn’t use the words journalism, media or news anymore–Wheaton writes:
Perhaps if Chris Anderson can’t find any words to talk about the media that he doesn’t even need to get along, he should shut up about it and to it already.
The Spiegel interview is a good read. Anderson, cock in hand, says news (a word he doesn’t use, but does) just comes to him. Via filters, and his circle of friends on Twitter.
Wheaton tears into that practice, as well:
When you start relying on your own circle of friends or colleagues to filter all your news, you end up with a very myopic sense of the world. You might think that everyone is on Twitter, for example. You might believe that Facebook won the election for Obama. In short, you become the same sort of person who only listens to right-wing talk radio or the sort who only reads left-leaning blogs.
There’s no doubt that the media business is in a crisis and the ad business with it. When the apple cart is upended, people want answers not cute jargon with a hundred holes in it. That’s why Wheaton, me and others have been busting on Anderson. His high priced rhetoric is fast becoming a joke. And at $50K per speaking engagement, it’s pretty clear who the joke’s on.
