Stop idealising the war journalist

Robert Fisk is typically provocative (and accurate) in today’s Independent column: It took a lot of courage to get into Homs; Sky News, then the BBC, then a few brave men and women who went to tell the world of the city’s anguish and, in at least two cases, suffered themselves. I could only reflect…

Wikileaks unloads with the Global Intelligence Files

The role of private companies in spying, monitoring and controlling public (and private) policy and debate sorely needs investigation. It’s not just about Western firms assisting repressive states censor the internet. Today Wikileaks launches the Global Intelligence Files: Today, Monday 27 February, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails…

What is real agenda of Al-Jazeera in Muslim world?

If true, yet more disturbing signs that Al-Jazeera is more than happy to see itself as endorsing regime change in the Arab world and often backing Western military support to do so (via AlAkhbar): Emails said to reveal dismay among Al-Jazeera staff over its “biased and unprofessional” coverage of Syria have been leaked by pro-Assad…

Anyone can make a revolution (but the web won’t be enough)

Last last year I was invited to chair a panel at the Sydney Opera House’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas called, “Anyone Can Make A Revolution”. It was an attempt to understand the reality of the Arab revolutions and the influence (or not) of the internet: In Egypt and Tunisia we have seen ordinary people come…

What the internet can (and cannot) do to hasten revolutions

My book The Blogging Revolution was recently released in India in an updated edition.…  Here’s a pretty good review of it by J Jagannath in a leading Indian newspaper, Business Standard: The little spark that the Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi ignited in December 2010 to torch himself in retaliation against corruption has engulfed the…

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