WASHINGTON – Freelance journalists and bloggers have quickly adapted to new media technologies while reporting in conflict zones. While this medium of journalism does have the benefits of limitless freedom, there are some drawbacks that can outweigh the flexibility for some.
James Clad, a contributing author to a new report, titled “Seismic Shift: Understanding Change in the Middle East,’’ discussed the growth of new media in a chapter he did for the book, and explained how it correlates to reporting methods that have been practiced before the boom of technology.
“For a variety of reasons, the upscale market for analytic, in-depth journalism has declined sharply since the 1990s,” Clad said at a conference sponsored by the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank. He noted that analytical journalism today requires a minimum word length, while in the past, writers turned in much longer pieces to their editors.
And while long-form journalism has declined, something else has increased – blogging, or “citizen journalism,’’ he said.
Though many of these bloggers are not affiliated with news organizations, they do have some advantages. One reason blogs have grown extremely popular over time is the fact they are instant – bloggers can post news from a multimedia device as soon as it’s happening. Bloggers also have more flexibility when it comes to topics, word count, tone, etc.
“When anyone with a hand phone can play reporter, and editors have little background or experience, the ethics taught at journalism schools (fact-checking, multiple sourcing) take a back seat or disappear altogether,” Clad said.
Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said that while the advances in technology over the last years have benefitted bloggers and freelancers, their situations are not optimal because they don’t have any type of protection from an assigning news organization.
“The technology, mobile communications, satellite technology, have made it easier for journalists and would-be journalists to go to conflict areas and in theory, be able to file, but the dangers today are exactly the same as they were 20 years ago in a conflict zone or battlefield,” Mahoney said. He pointed out that online publication is cheaper, and has become the only way to get information out in countries with repressive governments.
But Mahoney said the need of journalists to do their “basic homework” such as conducting a proper risk assessment and taking the right precautions before embarking on such a mission is still a huge concern.
While news organizations provide hostile environment training and equipment for their staff, the Committee to Protect Journalists steps in to ensure freelancers are just as prepared. They offer a safety handbook to journalists that provides basic information about precautions they should take before entering a conflict zone. They can also react to situations such as where a journalist is detained by a repressive government and accused of being a spy. The committee can then issue a statement pointing to the published work of that journalist.
Courtney Radsch, senior program officer of the Global Freedom of Expression campaign, highlighted the evolvement of blogs and social media in the Middle East and North Africa region during the panel discussion about the “Seismic Shift’’ report. She wrote a chapter on Blogosphere and Social Media for the publication.
“I would say that there has been a pan-Arab campaign on freedom of expression and freedom on the net and imprisonment of bloggers, which is a form of solidarity, and that helped convey tactics across the region, so there have been pan-Arab blogger conferences, there have been some grassroots efforts to create a blogger’s union and to organize bloggers,” Radsch said during the lecture.
Radsch said Internet access in the region expanded from 13 percent to 40 percent of the population between 2005 and 2011. She pointed to a study conducted by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, “Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere” which created a network map of 6,000 of the most connected Arab blogs. A team of Arabic speakers hand coded 4,000 blogs. The largest primary groupings found were Egyptian, Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabian, Kuwaiti, Levantine/English Bridge, Syrian, and Religion-Focused. The study found a majority of these bloggers wrote mostly personal observations, with popular topics being issues within their own country, religion and human rights.
There was some vocal dissatisfaction with the repressive political systems that placed a limited on freedom of expression from bloggers in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, according to Radsch. She said that in Egypt, bloggers tended to write about the coming popular uprising.
