I have just read a really interesting post by Mary-Ann Williams ('We Got Him'), in which she brands the proposed regulation of blogging as elitist.
This week Wikipedia has reportedly banned additions to certain pages on its database due to the deliberate posting of misinformation.
Despite this, I have to agree with Mary-Ann's point.
Her example of the media's reaction to Saddam Hussein's execution sentence perfectly highlights the dangers of restricted news coverage.
The tabloid press has erupted in a frenzy of blood-lust, stepping down from its pedestal as informed reporter and joining the baying crowds chanting their support for the punishment. The Sun's 'Hang to Rights' headline exhibits the paper's aggressive support for the sentence.
This is a dangerously senstationalist stance for the king of the British tabloids to take in a country which often loves nothing better than a scapegoat or a political drama. It is a particularly dangerous stance to take considering that the core audience of the tabloids is of the C2DE demographic and therefore perhaps likely to take their chosen paper's ramblings as gospel.
I am not debating the justification of such venom towards the former dictator, or people's right to euphoria at his demise. What I am saying is that the issue should have been dealt with more responsibly by the British tabloids.
As a medium of overwhelming power over their readers' perceptions of the world around them, they ought to have honoured their influencial position instead of subscribing so totally to a particular viewpoint to the detriment of any semblance of balance or impartiality.
It is in instances such as this that the internet's full value as an unregulated source can truly be seen. Explore a cross-section of only ten blogs and you are likely to stumble across a huge variety of viewpoints on the Saddam subject.
And while it is true that users should approach the use of blogs as reliable sources of information with extreme caution, surely the thinly-veiled censorship increasingly exercised by the British tabloids merits the same wary treatment.
Unlike the tabloids of today, blogging allows us a wide and reasonably balanced sample of opinions from which to discern the reliable from the rubbish. And while the powers that be may not relish the prospect of the uncontrolled musings of citizen journalism - as I suspect is the case from the level of anti-blogging propaganda appearing lately - I think it can only enrich our society in the long-run.
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2 comments:
You've really summed it up and I completely agree. I am beginning to get frustrated with newspapers' ability to confuse news and comment especially, as you say, in situations like this. They know their influence and use it to express their opinion as fact.
Well said. The Saddam reaction left a nasty taste in my mouth too.
As for the wikipedia censorship- I think that was just jokers trying to change Kashastan's president to 'Borat'- I can see why they locked the editing funtion there.
As for blogging I think it fills a valuable role in providing opinion- which you can't get enough of.
T
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