Quality blogs can be really powerful
Blogs are considered by most people as “irresponsible journalism” because the writers can go online and say anything they want without telling us the source of their information. There are no confirmations or denials, as it happens in the traditional news media, so a blog can dangerously linger on the Internet, giving wrong information, until the time someone debunks it. In today’s busy world, attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and many people don’t have time to read a full news story in a newspaper. They just go on the Internet and skim the headlines, which can often be misleading. And when they get a chance, they also skim through their favourite blogs. So while the headlines do not give the full picture of a news story, blogs also don’t present the full picture because bloggers can be biased and tell a one-sided story. This is disconcerting because Indian society is becoming more and more political and polarized and people tend to read only those blogs that agree with their own ideas. That is why some times political bloggers become more powerful than even journalists who, according to the strict rules of journalism, are barred from giving their opinion. Many media outfits are adopting innovations on their online versions. Major TV channels in the US have started allowing ordinary people to be Citizen Reporters, and other mainstream media outlets have added blogs to their sites. America’s biggest international broadcaster, VOA, also invites and publishes blogs of students and ordinary citizens on its site. The Times of India has created its own site for blogs to attract good and famous writers. The BBC’s website posts readers’ pictures. Some news outlets are hiring journalists from the blogging ranks. Journalists are blogging live from the field in order to post frequent updates in near real-time. The biggest advantage bloggers have is that censorship can hardly ever affect them. In fact, bloggers can avoid censorship even in the most undemocratic societies. So, dissident bloggers in a closed dictatorial society can write about sensitive issues, which otherwise they cannot discuss because of fear. Yoani Sanchez has become one of the world’s most popular dissident bloggers. She has taken on the Communist leadership in Cuba just with the help of a laptop and a cellphone. She has been blogging her criticisms of the Cuban government to the entire world. And the irony is that very few people within Communist Cuba actually have access to her blogs. Actually, very few people in Cuba have access to the Internet. So Sanchez writes at home, puts the text on a flash drive and goes to a five-star hotel in Cuba to send her blogs to a friend in one of the Western nations, who translates them into English and puts them up on the Internet. Since gaining fame, Sanchez has not been allowed to travel outside Cuba. Her requests to leave the island nation were denied 20 times, until just recently she finally received her passport. During her first ever trip to the US recently, she spoke to a CNN TV reporter, Hala Gorani. “I’m very much afraid because of the things I do,” she said. “But I think we have arrived at a technological stage, which has made it possible for me to transmit my voice and my message in ways which other Cubans aren’t able to do.” Besides visiting the US, she also travelled to Mexico and a couple of other countries in South and Latin America. Sanchez says that after her world tour, she intends to return to Cuba. It is not clear if the Cuban government will allow her to return. And some even ask her ‘Why go back at all?’. “Because the people I love are in Cuba – my son, my husband and many friends,” she says. “And because I have projects in Cuba.” So her life, she says, is in Cuba, not elsewhere. Why did she become such a famous blogger? The first reason that comes to mind is that the Western world wants to know more about Cuba and the media has neglected the country. But then I read one of her blogs about her visit to Mexico, and was floored by her literary style. Yaoni Sanchez writes: “So my Aztec journey began surrounded by contrasts. From Puebla to Mexico City, meeting friends and visiting several newspaper offices, radio stations and, above all, speaking with many, many journalist colleagues. I wanted to know first hand the rewards and risks of practising the reporter’s profession in this society and I have met a great number of concerned, but working, professionals. People who risk their lives, especially in the north, to report; people who think like I do about the need for a free Press, responsible, and tied to reality. I have learnt from them… In reality, I was trying to look at and find my own country through the eyes of the Mexicans. And I found it. An Island reinterpreted and multiple, but close; one that raises passions in everyone and leaves no one unscathed. A friend asked me before I left, ‘What does Mexico make you feel?’ I didn’t think too long: ‘Spicy,’ I replied, like a spice that provokes an electric shock, and brings tears of pleasure and torment. ‘And Cuba,’ he insisted, ‘What does it make you feel?’... Cuba, Cuba is bittersweet...” (Author/columnist Ravi M. Khanna has covered South Asia for Voice of America from Washington and New Delhi for more than 24 years) Feedback: ravimohankhanna@gmail.com
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