“We had figures that indicated that we had 2,500 percent increase in traffic; 60 percent of that traffic was from the United States of America,” said Satnam Matharu, the director of communications, in a recent interview with NPR.

From my point of view, the lack of distribution for the English broadcast, the use of technology in the unrest and the quickness of the evolving news has been a prefect combination that has enabled Al Jazeera to be a leader in coverage and use of tech.

For this week’s post, I ‘interviewed’ Online producer for Al Jazeera English, Bilal Randeree. Because of the time difference and the constant news developments, Randeree and I ‘met’ on a collaborative document to have this conversation over several weeks.

First, Bilal, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I know you and the entire Al Jazeera crew have been extremely busy. Why don’t we start with you introducing yourself, your role at AJE, and how you started in journalism? Also, while it’s clearly been a newsy few weeks… how does it compared to your usual daily routine?

Hey Robert, sounds good. Really busy with Libya at the moment – I’m sure you’ve seen all my tweets (@bilalr) – our live blog is hugely popular once again!

I’m going to give a few very brief answers now cos I’m taking a quick break from the shocking news, so here goes:

I’m from South Africa – worked in banking for a few years, based out of Johannesburg – I then moved to London, but the timing was bad cos the financial crises hit as I was settling in!

As a freelance writer at the time, I was constantly asked to cover the crises from the ‘inside’ – what I learned then made me realize that working in corporate was not for me. I went back to school and did a post-grad in journalism. It was that degree together with my experience in corporate that landed me the job at Al Jazeera as a Business Journalist.

However, after moving to Doha I soon changed over to a general Online Journalist. I write for the Al Jazeera website, and update and maintain our various social media and online platforms. The past few weeks have been incredibly busy, with most of my colleagues and I working long shifts, day after day.

Can you describe the online operation at Al Jazeera? How incorporated is the Web staff? Do the different ‘sister stations’ with different languages have different Web staffs?

The English and Arabic channels are largely editorially independent – and so are the two websites. However, there is always the necessary collaboration and exchange of information, sources and resources.

The English website actually started before the English channel, but I’m not sure how things operated back then. These days, the website news desk is in the AJE newsroom, so we interact with broadcast quite a bit.

Typically, broadcast has reporters around the world covering the news for us – they are limited in terms of time on air, so the website is where our audience comes to for in-depth coverage and analysis of international news. Together with news from our reporters, we use the main news wires as sources, together with good old fashioned telephone journalism – the Internet is a major source obviously, and we are constantly finding and using new online tools for news gathering and contacting sources on the ground.

Bilal Randeree, lower right hand corner, works only a few feet from the set.

So, when it comes to AJE, the website came first … that’s a quite different experience from most newsrooms. And it sounds like it has had some interesting effects. How would you describe the culture of the ‘converged’ newsroom?

Well, to be honest I’m not in the ideal position to answer this question, seeing that I’ve been here for a year now, and the English channel has been running for a good few years already. In terms of convergence, its a constantly changing relationship – broadcast and Web are continually finding new and better ways to work together and support each other, over and above the obvious. The most recent development, starting with our Tunisia and then Egypt coverage, has been the ‘Web Desk’ that TV hosts – they prop a presenter in front of the camera, that discusses what is going on online, how readers are interacting with us on different platforms, and also what is being shared, discussed and debated on the Internet.

Can you talk about, and perhaps list, all the different Web platforms and tools AJE employs (Twitter, Tumblr, iPhone Apps, etc.)

I have only recently started the Al Jazeera Tumblr account, but we’ve been active on Twitter and Facebook for a while now. The New Media team has traditionally been very strong and innovative, but the link between the tools they develop and experiment with, and how they are used on the News Desks was not at its best about a year ago. In that time however, network-wide training courses in Social Media were held, and the change is quite noticeable – besides the Web team, lots of other AJ people are active on different platforms.

Our live blog has been the latest hot development and we are seeing an incredible following, mainly for the hot news events that are constantly developing – first with Egypt, and now with Libya.

I tweeted that I was interviewing you and got this question from @Abdulla_AlAthba. He asks ‘Did twitter make it easier for [journos] @ AJA to track the news?’ Can you talk about how technology has changed the way Al Jazeera does its reporting?

Well, while Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic both form part of the Al Jazeera Network, the two stations operate relatively independent of each other. There is collaboration between journalists on both sides, but not all stories are covered by both, or in the same way.

In my personal experience, from the beginning, when things started in Tunisia and English broadcast was not covering the story in depth, due to a lack of sources on the ground, I was able to build up a good network of trusted sources through Twitter. While Twitter does alert us to events that are unfolding, its rare that Twitter itself will be a source – rather, a journalist can find sources and make contacts on Twitter, and then follow up with phone calls or emails, etc.

What stands out for me, when I look at Al Jazeera, is how technology is so embraced and employed in all different types of coverage. What do you think is the reason why it seems to be more open and willing to embrace technology, while other news orgs may be… a little… more reluctant. Or, is it my imagination, and Al Jazeera is facing with the same tech cultural issues other newsrooms are?

Well, I can’t speak for how other media organizations work – and for us at Al Jazeera, it’s not just the way we embrace technology, etc. that makes us stand out from the rest, but rather almost every aspect of our coverage.

I would assume that compared to most other big media organizations, the fact that we are still not able to be broadcast extensively around the world, we know and value the importance of the Internet more, and hence make more/better use of it.

Can you talk about the equipment/gear Al Jazeera reporters, those that cover breaking news and file for the Web, carry with them? I hear Flipcams and phones instead of laptops.

We have been using Flipcams for a while now, and have some cool campaigns running where we give citizens Flipcams and they produce content that feeds back to us.

For reporters and producers that cover live events, there are a few different tools they use – mobile phones for tweeting, sending through Audioboos and Twitpics, from places where there is no Internet or the Internet gets blocked, we issue Thuraya IP modems.

Our New Media team also has iPhones and BB‘s that they issue out to anyone going out into the field, that has all apps and software, customized and tested for ease of use.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I know you’ve been quite busy!

Robert Hernandez is a Web Journalism professor at USC Annenberg and co-creator of #wjchat, a weekly chat for Web Journalists held on Twitter. You can contact him by e-mail (r.hernandez@usc.edu) or through Twitter (@webjournalist). Yes, he’s a tech/journo geek.

Here is an attempt to break down the from my point of view using Storify. This mainly reflects Twitter and my experiences.

Robert Hernandez is a Web Journalism professor at USC Annenberg and co-creator of #wjchat, a weekly chat for Web Journalists held on Twitter. You can contact him by e-mail (r.hernandez@usc.edu) or through Twitter (@webjournalist). Yes, he’s a tech/journo geek.

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.

For some, tools like Twitter are at the Gutenberg level, while others place it at… the Guttenberg level. (Sorry Mahoney)

But the “debates” on whether it is the next printing press that causes revolutions around the world or the next Police Academy 3: Back in Training, focusing on what we’re having for lunch, to me, are looking at it wrong.

When I teach how to use social media for real-time reporting, I tend to get some of the same questions and comments either praising or dis’ing these applications.

- Why do I want to know about what celebrities had for lunch?

- It’s what caused the mass protests in Egypt, right?

- Doesn’t it hurt your relationships in real life?

- Twitter is the news source. Traditional news orgs are screwed.

Not exactly.

Twitter, Facebook and other social media applications have greatly affected our lives and influenced our culture… but, remember, it’s just a platform. A tool. An appliance, if you will.

I tell folks to frame social media apps just like a telephone.

There are hundreds of incredibly insightful, powerful conversations happening over the phone right now. But, there are also several thousands of mundane and truly painful “conversations” as well.

It’s not the telephone’s fault. It’s how people use it.

Extend this clunky metaphor to radio, TV, and printed publications. There is quality and there is crap. But, without a doubt, these platforms have each enhanced the way we communicate, share information and interact.

I was lucky enough to be in Washington, D.C., when Egypt erupted. D.C. is one of the few cities that carries Al Jazeera English.

With the news network on the television set and Tweetdeck launched on my laptop, I watched the coverage unfold, noticing that the station’s live coverage was the fastest and most complete news source. And, as they reported, I and other viewers tweeted/retweeted.

A few days before, I had seen someone once again claim that Twitter is the news source. In my opinion, it really isn’t. It’s a great aggregator where news and information – accurate or not – flows fast. But the “news” on Twitter tends to be coming from traditional news media.

Twitter is an invaluable platform. But it’s not really the source.

For the most part, when it comes to news, the source/content comes from traditional news sources. And that information gets shared with a vast network of users.

There are powerful reports from the ground, but the impact of the situation, for me, is really felt through the news sites.

So, it’s not the source, but it is one incredibly powerful platform.

We’ve all seen these headlines calling an Iranian Twitter revolution, Tunisia cyber-net revolution and, certainly now, Egypt’s social media uprising.

It’s a narrative many in the media are in love with, even though it cheapens the fact that people are risking more than just their Internet access. They are doing more than updating their status and streams.

There is no doubt these tools were used in all these historic events, but I would encourage us to be a little more hesitant in crediting it as the cause.

I imagine that this narrative was used when the printing press, radio or television were first introduced… a revolution caused by the platform. And I imagine that this is just a phase where a shiny new platform is an easy narrative to jump on.

But here’s the thing. It’s not an either/or issue. It’s both. The platform has facilitated the organization of the masses and empowers them to distribute the information in a new way.

There are lots of people writing about this topic. Here’s a collection of different points-of-views:

http://gigaom.com/2011/01/29/twitter-facebook-egypt-tunisia/

http://gov20.govfresh.com/a-tunisian-on-the-role-of-social-media-in-the-revolution-in-tunisia/

http://motherjones.com/interview/2011/01/evgeny-morozov-twitter-tunisia

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-january-27-2011/the-rule-of-the-nile

My point overall is a simple one: Credit the people, acknowledge the platform, but put it all in perspective.

Robert Hernandez is a Web Journalism professor at USC Annenberg and co-creator of #wjchat, a weekly chat for Web Journalists held on Twitter. You can contact him by e-mail (r.hernandez@usc.edu) or through Twitter (@webjournalist). Yes, he’s a tech/journo geek.

As President Hosni Mubarak slowly lifts his iron grip on power — having been the leader of Egypt for the past 24 years — the opposition parties are using the Internet and e-mail to rally against him. And bloggers and activists have organized protests throughout the year, taking photos of uniformed and plainclothes police as they beat protesters and posting images online for the world to see.

One of the most outspoken online opponents of Mubarak is also one of the most technologically savvy. Alaa Abd El Fattah works for the Italian human rights group Cooperation for Development of Emerging Countries, and also runs a multi-faceted Web hub with his wife called Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket. Both Manal and Alaa, who are in their early 20s, do open source Web development, but their technical work is interwoven tightly with a fight for political reform in Egypt.

“We also offer Drupal-based free hosting space and free aid developing a Web site for any cause we find worthy or interesting and for any speech that is censored or prosecuted in Egypt,” says a passage at the top of the main blog. The blog has posts in both Arabic and English, and the site includes an Egyptian blog aggregator also in both languages, photo galleries, a database of torture victims and videos documenting police brutality.

But Abd El Fattah doesn’t just sit behind his computer. He goes out into the streets to protest and photograph events, and he doesn’t shy away from trouble. Abd El Fattah told me via e-mail of the harrowing events of May 25, when hundreds of people protested the referendum to hold multi-party elections. The problem with the referendum is that any potential presidential candidate has to get approval from half of parliament, a body that is stacked with Mubarak supporters.

“On the day of the referendum, May 25th, after being attacked by tens of hired thugs I noticed a uniformed police general (they use ranks similar to the military) was supervising the whole thing,” Abd El Fattah said. “I stood up and took photos of him. He ordered the thugs to grab my camera, but I fought back and managed to save it.”

Abd El Fattah said they used those photos as evidence in court against the policeman, though the case is currently on hold. But he didn’t let it go at that, making large banners of his photo and taking them to political events — making the photo an icon of police brutality.

“Annoyed by the coverage and pressure, he tried to intimidate me once after a protest,” Abd El Fattah said. “I nearly lost control and attacked him. It turned out it was a trap. There were cameras there waiting to take photos of me attacking a uniformed cop (a major offense).”

Abd El Fattah’s site has been a veritable hub of activism in Egypt. Plus, he has used all the tools at his disposal to organize protests: the blog, mass e-mails, SMS messages, newspaper ads. While he can’t gauge how well each medium reaches people, Abd El Fattah said that if one channel isn’t used then less people show up for protests.

While not every Egyptian blogger is politically active, the Internet and blogs represent a hope for the people of Egypt to express themselves and provide a check on security forces and government.

“The Internet, and the rise of blogs in particular, have afforded Egyptians an unprecedented opportunity to make their voices heard, to exchange ideas, and to communicate across borders,” said Elijah Zarwan, a Cairo-based consultant for Human Rights Watch. “Where the press is tightly controlled, human rights activists, journalists, and opinionated citizens can now set up their own blogs free of charge in a matter of minutes. Pro-democracy and human-rights activists, shut out from the mainstream media, have taken to the Web to disseminate information. A few regularly call for Mubarak to resign.”

Politics infuses blogs

The Egyptian government has long controlled the content of newspapers, TV and radio, while the Internet has been more of a safe haven for freewheeling forums and opposition sites. All that changed when opposition newspapers broke with tradition and took on Mubarak.

“There has been an amazing new freedom of press in Egypt,” said Big Pharaoh, an Egyptian blogger in Cairo who prefers anonymity. “For example, six months ago, the opposition paper for the first time directly attacked and criticized President Mubarak. This has never happened before. Last year, this was unthinkable. Today I’m seeing all these opposition papers all over Egypt say amazing things that they couldn’t say last year.”

That change came when Mubarak started contemplating multi-party elections — brought on by a combination of internal and external pressures, most of all from the U.S. government and its push for Middle East democracies.

But not all Egyptian bloggers are political, and not all of them are advocating the opposition. Big Pharaoh, for example, has come out in support of Mubarak, saying that the time isn’t yet right for fully open elections — because an Islamist extremist might come to power. The main Islamist opposition to Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood, does not have a candidate in the election, set for September 7. But the group advocates voting for anyone but Mubarak.

As the media opens up in Egypt, the online forums and blogs have gone even further. A blogger who goes by the pseudonym Egyptian Person reported that candidate Noaman Gomaa got so fed up with people shouting slogans — and not allowing him to speak — that he said, “Is there no one who is capable of shutting up that boy, that son of a faggot?” The comment was caught on microphone, unbeknownst to Gomaa and spread through the blogosphere.

But blog readership remains limited in Egypt. Abd El Fattah says the most popular blogs get 1,000 to 2,000 visits per day, while the smaller ones get in the low hundreds of visitors daily. Limiting factors within the country are the language barrier with English-language blogs, the expense of owning a computer, and just basic literacy — only 57.7 percent of the population is literate, according to CIA’s World Factbook. But Net access is subsidized by the government and cheap Net cafes are widespread, leading to 4.2 million Internet users in a country of 77 million people (CIA numbers).

Blogs in English tend to have a higher readership outside Egypt and especially in the U.S. And diplomats eat up the information they get from Egyptian blogs, which have street knowledge that’s hard to gain when you’re confined to an embassy for security reasons. Joshua Stacher helps write the group blog Arabist.net and is a doctoral student at Univesity of St. Andrews who lives in Cairo.

“Blogs are being read by the elite here who have access to computers and high-speed Internet and have the luxury of time to sit around and talk about these things,” Stacher said. “People in the States really like us, and the people in the embassy love us because they never leave the embassy. For a U.S. diplomat who doesn’t go to protests, this provides another window in what’s going on. Our blog is supposed to be about the Arab world, but it’s really about Egypt, because that’s what we know best.”

Most bloggers I spoke with said English-language Egyptian blogs have a more pro-Western or pro-American stance, while Arabic blogs better reflect how average Egyptians feel. Mohamed M. writes a popular Arabic blog called Digressing, and says that most bloggers have been infused by politics rather than having driven the political movement.

“Maybe in a few years when we see thousands of blogs we can claim that blogs affected politics,” Mohamed M. said via e-mail. “Right now I think it’s the other way around: The political climate has affected bloggers. More and more bloggers who were not so politicized have started to talk about politics. Some bloggers who would be shivering and censoring themselves when they wanted to talk about political taboos, have started to be less restrained as they saw newspapers addressing those taboos bluntly. I was one of them. My tone right now is very different from the self-censored tip-toeing tone of the times before.”

Despite the lack of self-censorship, almost all Egyptian bloggers use pseudonyms, even though they show their faces to authorities at protests. Some anonymous bloggers feel it gives them more freedom to write about politics. Others don’t want work colleagues or family members to associate them with their writing. One colorful Cairo blogger who goes by the pseudonym Sandmonkey ticked off the various reasons he’d rather not use his own name.

“I am anonymous for many reasons,” he wrote in an e-mail message. “1) Because it’s not safe to say the things I say on my blog, and if my identity is known I may get arrested; 2) I don’t want my views to be used against my family members by their political enemies, especially since those family members are Mubarak supporters; 3) I like the freedom that being anonymous grants you. It helps separate your real life from your ‘blog life,’ which is good because it allows me to relax. I vent on the blog as the Sandmonkey — it’s my inner Tyler Durden [from the movie Fight Club].”

Fears, hopes for the future

So far, the government hasn’t shown an interest in shutting down blogs or arresting bloggers. Most bloggers believe the government knows about their blogs, but because their readership and protests have remained relatively small, the police haven’t taken action yet. My repeated attempts to contact government officials for this story were fruitless.

Stacher says that Westerners like himself feel they have some protection from government. Plus, if an online activist like Abd El Fattah were thrown in jail, the outcry from bloggers and foreign media would cause more trouble than it was worth. Stacher explained that because most Egyptian security is focused on the street level, the Internet hasn’t really come into play.

“Anywhere in Cairo where you go, you can spot the police on the street and you see them all the time and they are watching your comings and goings,” Stacher said. “They’re part of the scenery. They’re always there. Because information and security is still gathered in that way, the blogs can organize [protests]. … Maybe they’re being watched but it’s not enough of a movement to scare anyone. [Security is] much more worried about political groupings and meetings in houses. Stuff that’s in the open. [Bloggers are] not attracting that many people to the protests. It’s the same 300 people every time.”

But there is still a lot of optimism that the online reform movement can sprout wings. Karim Elsahy is an Egyptian architect who lives in Boston, and has become an active blogger in the past few months. Elsahy started a non-profit called Pray4Peace and raised money for the victims of the Sharm El-Sheikh terrorist bombing. Elsahy is currently in Egypt to deliver the $3,500 he raised to victims’ families and told me he hopes his One Arab World blog will morph into a political party over time.

“We’re going to be forming a political party, not less than 10 years from now,” Elsahy said. “The idea is economic independence among Arab states. The problem with the phrase ‘pan-Arabism’ is that it is associated with previous [failed] attempts. My idea isn’t a version of the European Union, but a kind of economic cooperation with a single language and the same culture.”

Bloggers wonder what will happen once the election is over and Mubarak has won in a landslide — which almost everyone expects to happen. Will bloggers continue to have the freedom to organize protests and attack Mubarak and his policies?

“I’m not sure if this freedom will go on forever or whether it will stop after the elections,” said Big Pharaoh. “But I don’t think it will stop because the genie is out of her bottle, so it will go on. The Internet is a powerful medium that’s getting bigger and bigger every day, but it’s not like the radio or television or the papers yet.”

In the short term, Egyptian bloggers and Netizens might play another important role in politics. Mohamed M. says they might become “citizen monitors” for the September 7 elections, reporting on what they see at polling places and taking photos of any harassment or election-rigging. That’s the kind of first-hand reporting that can help bloggers serve in a watchdog role while other media are held back.

* * *

In Their Own Words

More thoughts on blogging and the elections from Egyptians and others in Egypt:

“Usually mainstream media would report a protest by a short clip on TV or a photo in a newspaper and stating who organized it and protesting what, and a line or two about ‘President Mubarak has promised to start political reforms.’ Bloggers on the other hand give a very detailed description of the protests, many photos, and with a personal side of telling the story compared to the stiff reporting of mainstream media.” — Mohamed M., Digressing blog

“I started [my blog] with people outside of Egypt as my primary audience. I wanted to inform the world that Egyptians are against terrorism and that not all of them hate the U.S. or the West and want it dead like they are always portrayed to be. However, my secondary audience was my fellow Egyptians as well. I wanted to challenge them and their ideas and make them re-think some of the positions that they have as truisms: Egypt won the ’73 war, the Jews are behind 9/11, Bush went to Iraq because of oil, etc. You know, stuff that the average Egyptian knows to be true because they make him/her feel good about their lives and the state that they are in.” — Sandmonkey, blogger

“Then Beheyyah came on the scene and she really transformed things, because her blog is really good. There are several theories about who she is, but no one knows for sure. It’s kind of a mystery. She has a lot of cultural and historical references that none of the foreigners would know. I might not be able to reference obscure songs or poems and she is able to do it.” — Joshua Stacher, blogger at the Arabist.net

“As I keep saying to all those who ask me about my blog, it is not a political nor an activist one. The stuff in that blog is more cultural and human than anything…I think the importance of blogs are negligent in shifting politics. They have been a good means in providing accounts of those protests that have been happening lately, and yes, they are much better than mainstream media. They are not regulated by size, or censor or any political affliations. Each blogger just captures his or her experience, and it’s pretty good.” — Mohamed, blogger at From Cairo With Love

“If you look at the impact on people outside the movement, mailing lists, forums, e-mails and SMS messages are effective ways of delivering information and mobilizing people who already belong to your network but fail at attracting new faces. I think we gained more than an extra 100 youth activists through blogs and other forms of citizen journalism.” — Alaa Abd El Fattah, who blogs at Manal and Alaa’s Bit Bucket