Lots of rumblings lately in the photo blogosphere about some comments made by Stephen Shore in an audio interview (see link for download, 35mb file) with the curator of the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle prior to his exhibition there. His words about, among other things, the boatload of mediocre and cliche photography on the web (taking particular jabs at sites like Flickr), and somewhat tying that into ye olde (and frankly tiring) "film vs. digital" discussion, have been the fodder of Alec Soth's blog and the blog 2point8.

See here and here and here and here (note the hundreds of responses garnered by Soth's original post).

To an extent each blog presents both sides of the coin. Read them and see what conclusions you come up with. I'm gonna just remain the messenger and try my best to resist the overwhelming temptation to weigh in on this topic...

...okay, I give in. But I'll keep it brief:
Consider the (what some would call overused) "everyone is a photographer these days" argument. Think about it in light of current photo technology--Flickr, digital cameras, Photoshop, etc.--and their relation to the accessibility of photography compared to other art forms (i.e. the "everyone is a painter these days" argument is much less frequently heard). Then connect the dots and figure how this affects the general integrity and appreciation of true professional photographic craft and artwork.