From Pies to Prison

Since the 1800’s the Fourth Estate has been identified with the public press. At first the fourth estate was just writers in the print media. Then came radio broadcasters, television, and most recently, the information managers of the Internet, in particular bloggers.

Bloggers bother politicians. Apparently words are even more dangerous than tossing pies in your face. When former Governor Ryan was smacked with a protest pie, at least he had the grace to say "Everyone gets to vent themselves a little bit; that's what it's all about, I guess." That opinion about protest methods is not shared across the world especially when it comes to some bloggers.

Bloggers are going to prison for the crime of simply talking about politics. Consider the fates of Hanif Mazroui in Iran, and Abel Kareem Nabil in Egypt. Nabil was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egypt's president. This is not exactly good news for free and open journalism.

Nabil’s conviction has garnered condemnations from human rights groups and others throughout the blogosphere. The international organization, Reporters without Borders, says “This sentence is a disgrace,” the press freedom organization said. “Almost three years ago to the day, President Mubarak promised to abolish prison sentences for press offences. Suleiman’s conviction and sentence is a message of intimidation to the rest of the Egyptian blogosphere, which had emerged in recent years as an effective bulwark against the regime’s authoritarian excesses.”

Read more about Nabil at FREEKAREEM!

In 2007 there are at least 140 journalists in jail, 60 cyberjournalists in prison. 14 media persons have been killed reporting the news.

Ink By The Case

In the heyday of print journalism it was not uncommon to hear the phrase “You don’t want to argue with people that buy ink by the case!” -- especially if it was someone like William Randolph Hearst. While the admonition still applies, it needs an update to the modern world of electronic citizen journalism.

Almost anyone can operate a free blog or get a free website, although the latter often requires acceptance of sponsorship advertising. And even that is not much different than writing a Letter to the Editor of a newspaper that subsists on classified ads. However, an author also needs some education and conceptual skills for navigating the Internet and its assorted user interfaces. Experiments like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Wikipedia, some social networking sites, and online collaboration workspaces are helping people experience the potential that the future Internet foretells.

In the blogging world, the author has access to unlimited supplies of electronic ink. The author can say darn near anything they want without serious repercussions. Anyone can be a pundit. Yet, Joe Citizen faces barriers and likely lacks experience, time and skills to build a dialogue with others. Until the technology improves, this is simply the way the world works. The technology will, of course, change.

The younger generation is always adopting and adapting to the new paradigm. Someday we may achieve media transparency when having a voice in the marketplace of ideas is universal and unencumbered by technology and external controls. Until and after the transparency is achieved our civilization needs to deal with the social aspects of communication: the digital divide, objectivity, as well as, ethics and standards.

A New Definition of Democratic Media

iFOCUS and pollster John Zogby have released a national survey of adults pertaining to American journalism. 72% said they were dissatisfied with the quality. 61% said they believed traditional journalism is out of touch with what Americans want from their news.

Most respondents (53%) said the rise of free Internet-based media pose the greatest opportunity to the future of professional journalism and 76% said the Internet has had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism. But they added that trustworthiness will be important to the future of the industry. 90% said trust will be key.

Despite concerns about its quality, 72% of those in the national survey said journalism is important to their community. More respondents (81%) said Web sites are important as a source of news, although television ranked nearly as high (78%), followed by radio (73%). Newspapers and magazines trailed – 69% said newspapers and 38% said magazines were important. While blogs were rated as important sources of news by 30% of the online respondents, they were not considered as good a news source as the backyard fence – 39% said their friends and neighbors are an important source of information.

Nearly nine out of 10 media insiders (86%) said they believe bloggers will play an important part in journalism’s future. “We’ve arrived at a tipping point. A new definition of democratic media is emerging in our society.”

The survey of 5,384 adults nationwide was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2007, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points.