China Better at the Internet than Most Journalists?

January 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment

(Wikimedia Commons)

Over at Poynter, Tom Rosenstiel talks about China’s recent censorship protests.  “It is telling that the protests in China this week over government control involve a newspaper and censorship–not a military tank in a public square.”  About half of China’s population is online.  Rosenstiel discusses how the web causes interesting fractures in what kind of information gets shared (many Chinese willing to talk movies and music, very few about politics).  While the web provides an equalizer of sorts (or the opportunity for equality) in international information trade, repressive governments find a way to study and adapt to new technologies (better, faster, stronger than journalists?).

Filed Under: The Repeater Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Encouraging grassroots journalism as a defense against news blackouts

November 15, 2011 By 1 Comment

If the police arrest reporters who show up to cover the news, then let’s help all the other people whom the police can’t arrest become the reporters.

“Citizen journalism” – the reporting of news events by non-professional reporters – isn’t just a nifty little gadget that we pros can append to our reporting, to make it seem more “social” or interactive online. When circumstances and agencies stand in the way of news reporting, grassroots reporting (my preferred term) becomes an indispensable part of the news-gathering process.

We’ve seen that over the past weeks with the Occupy movement, and especially last night in New York, when city police launched a middle-of-the-night raid on peaceful protesters camped out in a private park in lower Manhattan – then blocked and even arrested news reporters who showed up to cover it.

By now, we should be used to relying on readers and viewers to provide coverage for us in times of natural disasters. Sure, we can drive the trucks to the point where a hurricane is forecast to make landfall, but forecasts aren’t always spot-on. And we get little warning for tornadoes, and none for earthquakes. (Twitter notwithstanding.) Professional journalists have relied upon eyewitness descriptions, photos and videos from people on the scene of calamities, since long before the Internet.

But if that’s all we’re using user-generated content for in our news reports, we’re leaving ourselves too vulnerable to authorities who wish to control our coverage. Organizers and supporters of the Occupy movement have recognized the importance of putting cameras in the hands of participants, to minimize the chance that a newsworthy moment happens without being recorded for the public at large.

That ought to become more journalists’ role, too – not just specifically for Occupy protests, but for all continuing coverage of daily life in our communities. I hope that reporters across the country take into their news meetings a copy of that NY Times blog post I linked earlier in this piece, and say to their colleagues, “we need to find ways to prevent this from happening in our community.”

This isn’t just about just riding your local officials so your community’s voters won’t elect the type of official who orders a press blackout of the news. Good luck with that. It’s about making a press blackout a pointless endeavor, by inspiring, training and enabling as many people in your community to become witnesses for the news, 24/7.

Afraid of cultivating your competition? Don’t be. If you can’t deliver the news, you’ve got no chance of surviving, much less making money, in the information marketplace. We need grassroots reporting.

And don’t forget why you got into this business. Surely it wasn’t for the great pay, the job security or the cushy hours. If you’re like most journalists, you got into this business to raise hell and right some wrongs. There’s nothing wrong with recruiting every ally you can to help.

The First Amendment never belonged to a single industry or its employees anyway. It belongs to everyone. The freedom of the press is a public right (along with the freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble). So let’s encourage our fellow citizens to use their freedom of the press, even when authorities try to say professional journalists can’t.

Especially when authorities try to say we can’t.

What was once a “you can’t yell ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater” exception to First Amendment protections has mutated into “you can protest only in approved zones during approved hours of the day using approved personal belongings and stances.” Don’t link arms. Don’t lie down. Don’t stay overnight.

Rights are like muscles. Use ‘em or lose ‘em. The more citizens we bring into the process of reporting the news, the stronger our freedom of the press will become.

Filed Under: Frontpage Tagged With: ,

Should anyone have a 'kill switch' for the Internet?

February 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The recent events in Egypt remind journalists not only of the physical peril inherent in covering conflict, but the evolving danger that journalists’ reporting can be kept from reaching the public at all.

Egypt’s crumbling regime has resorted to traditional techniques for silencing reporters, including beatings and arrests. (Reporters also have been assaulted by pro-government thugs during the ongoing anti-government protests.) But it was the Egyptian government’s action to cut access to the Internet early during the protests that also should prompt journalists around the world to take a closer look at their government’s attitude toward controlling the Internet.

Even here in the United States, there’s far from political unanimity on how the government should address the Internet. Consumer advocates want to the Federal Communications Commission to expand to wireless services its rules blocking Internet providers from slowing access to content providers who don’t pay telecommunication companies an extra fee, beyond hosting and bandwidth charges. The telcos want the government to butt out and quit preventing them from finding new ways to make money to maintain and expand their networks. The Department of Homeland Security is shutting down websites (including ones outside the US) that link to live streams of copyrighted televise broadcasts.

And some members of Congress have proposed legislation that would allow the government to shut down parts of the Internet in a “national emergency.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told Wired.com last week that she might reintroduce the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act of 2010 in this Congressional session. The bill is designed to legally enable the federal government to shut down parts of the Internet under cyber attack – creating an effective firewall between comprised networks and the rest of the Internet.

I can’t imagine not wanting to preserve the integrity of the Internet in a time of crisis, when efficient communication can become even more important. But giving anyone in the federal government a “kill switch” for the Internet ought to concern any advocate for free speech, especially in light of what Egypt has done.

The bill contains a provision against censorship, but, as Wired.com pointed out, similar language in the Patriot Act didn’t stop the feds from using that legislation to spy on interest groups.

The definition of an attack changes with your point of view, as well. I’m certain that the Mubarak regime in Egypt considered the outpouring of support for change in that nation an “attack” on its national security.

Throughout history, people have made money and achieved power by controlling access points in commerce, including ports, portages, mountain passes, and roads. In recent times, others have earned money and power by owning access points for the passage of information, such as the town’s printing press, a broadcast license or, later, cable TV franchise.

While restricting the flow of people, goods and information through access points can enrich those who control those points, opening access helps spread that wealth among a larger population, often creating additional wealth in the process.

It’s ridiculous to insist that the U.S. government stay out of the Internet. Heck, it created the thing. Like interstate highways or global air and sea traffic routes, the Internet’s too important to allow it to fall under the control of a handful of corporations.

Or a few government officials.

That’s why I believe that government’s role in the Internet ought to be:

  • Protecting open access to this information marketplace, preventing service providers from denying access to publishers.
  • Promoting the expansion of Internet access to more people.
  • Promoting the expansion of bandwidth across the Internet.
  • Promoting the establishment of more redundancy within the Internet, to improve reliability and minimize the effectiveness of both cyber attack and censorship.

Regardless of your opinion on those points, I hope that the revolution under way in Egypt will inspire more online publishers to speak up when politicians debate regulation of the Internet. This issue means too much to us as business people, and too much to us as leaders in the communities we serve, for we to keep quiet and leave these decisions to others.

What’s happening in Egypt also reminds us that brave reporters risk their lives to bring the rest of us the news. We owe it to them, as well as to their audience, to do everything we can to ensure that the news they report can and will get out to the rest of the world.

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