Wednesday, February 23, 2005

From the balcony of the privileged...

I am in wonderment of our relative freedom of speech in 'the West' in light of this article in The Age about the plight of journalists in Zimbabwe:

Three reporters for major international news organisations have fled Zimbabwe and a fourth is apparently in hiding after police and intelligence agents searched their offices and threatened to arrest them for espionage and slandering the state.

The actions appear to be part of a campaign to suppress international coverage of events in Zimbabwe before crucial national elections on March 31....

Even this fairly short news story does not fully capture the gravity of the situation in which these journalists find themselves! We are so removed from this! News stories are being told with much more involvement of the journalist (remember Hunter S Thompson?). This example from a site called InteractiveNarrative shows how journalists are developing stories and breakiong down the line between objective journalism (if there is such a thing anyway) and participatory journalism!

What really captures me in this is that my senses get involved -- I am a sensing, experiential person, over being logical and rational per se. That is, I am more comfortable following my intuition than I am following logic and rules! Not that I totally disregard thopse of course, but it is my preference to rely on intuition and 'sensing' in order for me to feel comfortable in hanlding situations on a daily basis.

Online journalism asks a lot of us these days but is also quickly responding to viewers preferences in accepting news in various forms. I used to open my email program first thing when logging into my computer, now I first click my Bloglines to check for updates on my subscribed blogs!! Things change with your needs as they become better faciltiated by technologies I think...

...again, a rather privileged position don't you think? I'll leave with something by reporter John Donnelly.

Ciao from the balcony -- for now!

No comments: