blogs
Paul Mason: journalism and the power of the network
He’s a self confessed “geek” who bought a Sinclair Spectrum computer with his first wage packet and says the arrival of the internet was "like Christmas". So it’s not suprising that BBC Newsnight‘s economics editor Paul Mason embraced social media with enthusiasm. One of the first BBC journalists to start a blog, Mason said during […]
Whistle blowers: what people have been saying about the debate
You can view the full event here. Discussion about the Frontline Club/New Statesman debate on Saturday has continued in blogs and on Twitter, under #fcnsdebate. The New Statesman‘s two-part coverage of the event plus video of all the speakers, photo library and live blog is here. Video of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking, not […]
Coming to the UK: Obama’s digital strategy
Blue State Digital, the company behind the successful web strategy that won Barack Obama the American presidency, recently opened a London office, recruiting Matthew McGregor to run the operation. MacGregor, who was responsible for Ken Livingstone’s 2008 mayoral campaign amongst others will be at the Frontline Club to talk about Obama’s web strategy and what […]
10 worst countries to be a blogger
On the eve of World Press Freedom Day, the Committee to Protect Journalists puts together a list of the 10 worst countries to be a blogger. Visit their site to find out more about the 10 countries and the justification for inclusion. The list, in order, is below and Burma comes out worst. Click each […]
Nagorno Karabakh: Blogs, social networking sites cross ethnic fault lines
In May, Armenia and Azerbaijan will mark the 15th anniversary of the 1994 ceasefire agreement which put the conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh, a mainly ethnic Armenian-populated autonomous oblast situated within Azerbaijan, on hold. Since then, international mediators continue to talk of a lasting peace agreement being in reach, but few following the […]
Blogging military blogging
I came across a blog called Soldiers in the blogosphere recently. It’s run by an active duty US Army Major, Jakob Bruhl, and is part of his graduation requirement from the Air Command and Staff College. Maj Bruhl discusses whether soldiers should be encouraged to write blogs and over the last few weeks he has […]
US military revisits blogging
The US military remains at the forefront of social media and military policy but recently new questions about the value of blogging have been raised. There has been plenty of debate in particular on the US Army Combined Arms Center site about the role of blogs as a means of strategic communication. Apparently, ‘the US […]
How the IDF fell off the social media bandwagon
I’ve been thinking for a while about how the Israeli Defence Force used social media during the conflict in Gaza and I’m not at all convinced the campaign was successful. Yes, the IDF was right to engage with the Internet and social media. But the way they went about it was questionable. I have two […]
Whitehouse.gov launches blog as Barack Obama is sworn in as President
So change has come to America. And change has come to the White House website. The new administration has launched a Presidential blog. It will ‘serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world’. No promises that the President will be doing the […]
Global Post looks to engage bloggers
Global Post, a new online news agency, is set to launch on Monday, January 12. The site claims it has 60+ foreign correspondents ready to report from 40+ countries in text, pictures and video. They plan to begin by trying to answer the question: “What does Obama mean to the World?” Charles Sennott, a Frontline […]
Gaza media coverage – alternative voices and blogs
News channels rely on far too few Israeli sources and do not represent the diversity of opinion on the conflict in Gaza, according to Jeff who commented on yesterday’s post: “There seems to be clear inconsistencies regarding the voices from Israel that are often heard on news channels vis-a-vis those which await adequate attention. It […]
A new kind of foreign coverage?
A year ago the Boston Globe newspaper closed its last three foreign bureaux. The closures followed the axing of four foreign correspondents from the Daily Telegraph in September 2006. Writing in the Washington Post, Pamela Constable summed up the misery: “Between 2002 and 2006, the number of foreign-based newspaper correspondents shrank from 188 to 141… […]
Keenian fallout
Rather predictably, various shards of shrapnel find themselves embedded within around the blogosphere after Andrew Keen’s lessons in Web 2.0 whackonomics last night. First up, Lloyd davies is shedding a few tears, Andrew is a man who clearly gets something out of being (metaphorically) beaten up by one half of the audience while the other […]