By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: October 22, 2011


I take no pleasure in seeing anyone lose a job, but I can’t say that the recent headlines showing that America’s biggest banks have been losing money on their trading operations, and are having to radically shrink as a result, are entirely bad news for the country. Over the last decade, America’s banking sector got pumped up by steroids — in the form of cheap credit and leverage — every bit as much as Major League Baseball’s home run hitters. And if one result of the downsizing of Wall Street is that more of America’s best and brightest math and physics students decide to go into science and real engineering rather than financial engineering, the country will be a whole lot better off.

Why? Because, to paraphrase the Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati, Wall Street, which was originally designed to finance “creative destruction” (the creation of new industries and products to replace old ones), fell into the habit in the last decade of financing too much “destructive creation” (inventing leveraged financial products with no more societal value than betting on whether Lindy’s sold more cheesecake than strudel). When those products blew up, they almost took the whole economy with them.

I was on Wall Street two weeks ago, and I’ve been in Silicon Valley this past week. What a contrast! While Wall Street is being rattled by a social revolution, Silicon Valley is being by transformed by another technology revolution — one that is taking the world from connected to hyperconnected and individuals from empowered to superempowered. It is the biggest leap forward in the I.T. revolution since the mainframe computer was replaced by desktops and the Web. It is going to change everything about how companies and societies operate.

The latest phase in the I.T. revolution is being driven by the convergence of social media — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, Zynga — with the proliferation of cheap wireless connectivity and Web-enabled smartphones and “the cloud” — those enormous server farms that hold and constantly update thousands of software applications, which are then downloaded (as if from a cloud) by users on their smartphones, making them into incredibly powerful devices that can perform myriad tasks.

The emergence of the cloud, explained Alan Cohen, a vice president of Nicira, a new networking company, “means than anyone can have the computing resources of Google and rent it by the hour.” This is speeding up everything — innovation, product cycles and competition.

The October issue of Fast Company has an article about the designer Scott Wilson, who thought of grafting the body of an iPod Nano onto colorful wristbands, turning them into watchlike devices that could wake you up and play your music. He had no money, though, to bring his concept to market, so he turned to Kickstarter, the Web-based funding platform for independent creative projects. He posted his idea on Nov. 16, 2010, reported Fast Company, and “within a month, 13,500 people from 50 countries had ponied up nearly $1 million.” Apple soon picked up the product for its stores. Said Alexis Ringwald, 28, who recently founded an education start-up, her second Silicon Valley venture: “I have many friends — they introduce themselves as ‘reformed’ Wall St. bankers and lawyers — who have abandoned conventional careers and are now launching start-ups.”

Marc Benioff, the founder of Salesforce.com, a cloud-based software provider, describes this phase of the I.T. revolution with the acronym SOCIAL. S, he says, is for speed — everything is now happening faster. O, he says, stands for open. If you don’t have an open environment inside your company or country, these new tools will blow you wide open. C is for collaboration because this revolution enables people to organize themselves within companies and societies into loosely coupled teams to take on any kind of challenges — from designing a new product to taking down a government. I is for individuals, who are able to reach around the globe to start something or collaborate on something farther, faster, deeper, cheaper than ever before — as individuals.

A is for alignment. “There has never been a more important time to have all your ships sailing in the same direction,” said Benioff.

“The power of social media is that it is easier than ever to both articulate, and reinforce, the vision and values that create and inspire alignment.”




And L is for the leadership that does that. Leadership in a SOCIAL world has to be a mix of bottom-up and top-down. Leaders need to inspire, enable and empower everything coming up from below in a company or a social movement and then edit and sculpt it with a vision from above into a final product.

The great thing about the new I.T. revolution, says Jeff Weiner, the C.E.O. of LinkedIn, is that “it makes it easier and cheaper than ever for anyone anywhere to be an entrepreneur” and to have access to all the best infrastructure of innovation. “And despite all of our challenges,” he adds, “it is happening here in America.”


Like I said, the news isn’t all bad.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/op...WT.mc_ev=click

Baha'is accuse Iran of stoking hatred in media
By Joe Sterling, CNN

(CNN) -- Iranian media outlets have "systematically stirred up" widespread contempt toward the country's 300,000-strong Baha'i religious minority, the group says.


The Baha'i International Community issued a report Friday entitled "Inciting Hatred: Iran's media campaign to demonize Baha'is."


The report "documents and analyzes more than 400 media items over a 16-month period." The result, the Baha'is say, is an "insidious state-sponsored effort" to discredit the Baha'is with "false accusations, inflammatory terminology, and repugnant imagery."


Iranians officials at the United Nations and in Tehran could not be reached for comment.


Among "recurring themes" in media coverage about Baha'is, the report said, is that they are "anti-Islamic," a "deviant" and "cult-like" sect, agents of Zionism, spies for Israel and the West, morally corrupt and an influence in the shah's government, toppled in 1979.



New themes have emerged in recent months, the report says.


he report says the Baha'is have instigated opposition to the regime, influenced "anti-regime" Iranian human rights activists, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, controls or influences foreign broadcasters, such as the BBC and Voice of America, and helped plan and participated in the 2009 Ashura protests against the presidential elections earlier that year.


The group also said the media ;


"uses brainwashing to entice Muslims away from their faith," and "security attractive young women to lure converts."


"This anti-Baha'i propaganda is shocking in its volume and vehemence, its scope and sophistication," said Bani Dugal, Principal Representative of the Baha'i International Community to the United Nations.


"It's all cynically calculated to stir up antagonism against a peaceful religious community whose members are striving to contribute to the well-being of their society," she said.


"The parallels between the campaign of anti-Baha'i propaganda in Iran today and other state-sponsored, anti-religious campaigns of the past are undeniable. History shows us that such campaigns are among the foremost predictors of actual violence against religious minorities -or, in the worst case, precursors of genocide."


The Baha'i faith, founded during the 19th century in Iran and now with 5 million to 6 million adherents worldwide, is a monotheistic religion that focuses on the spiritual unity of humanity.But Iran's Shiite Muslim ruling ayatollahs regard the faith as blasphemous because its founder, Bahaullah, declared himself to be a prophet of God. Muslims believe the Prophet Mohammed was the last prophet of God.The group said the anti-Baha'i messages are


"originates with and are sanctioned by the country's highest levels of leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei."


Iran, however, claims that international media are an arm of a Baha'i conspiracy.Those claims are "both ludicrous and funny, if it wasn't so sad," said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists' Middle East and North Africa program.


"Any international media outlet that carries news that is not identical to the Iranian government's line is accused of being an agent of fill in the blank: The Baha'is, the Americans, the Mossad."


The U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom -- an independent, bipartisan federal agency -- regularly documents the Iranian regime's actions toward the Baha'is.A USCIRF official said the Iranian government's media campaign to denigrate and vilify the Baha'i community is part of its long-standing policy to not only incite violence against Baha'is but also to seek a slow death of the community's very existence in the country.



"The longer you wear down a community by demonizing them, intimidating them, depriving them, and arresting and imprisoning them - the hope is that you achieve your goal of total eradication," said Dwight Bashir, deputy director for policy and research at USCIRF.



The Baha'i report cities more than 200 "specious and misleading articles" by the semi-official Kayhan newspaper. USCIRF also singles out Kayhan.


"Among those responsible for this media initiative has been Hossein Shariatmadari, managing editor of the government-controlled Kayhan newspaper, who was appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei himself," Bashir said.


,"Kayhan's articles about the Baha'i community have been a combination of vitriol and falsified information that has served to justify many of the egregious actions taken by the government against members of the community. As a consequence, USCIRF has urged the U.S. government to add Shariatmadari to its sanctions list of Iranian officials responsible for severe violations of human rights, including religious freedom" said Bashir.


Faraz Sanei, Iran researcher with the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said rights groups have long documented the government's "systematic campaign, both in law and practice, to target Baha'is and "deprive them of of their ability to freely manifest the beliefs and teachings of their faith."



Sanei said the "report provides valuable insight into the mechanics of a less documented and more insidious element of this campaign - anti-Baha'i propaganda propagated by official and semi-official media outlets, and the degree to which hate speech further exposes an already vulnerable minority group to discrimination and attacks by private actors."


Baha'is accuse Iran of stoking hatred in media - CNN.com

__________________
"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

The media can sting

By A.G. Noorani | From the Newspaper


STING operations which the media, print and electronic, conduct, are an offshoot of investigative journalism. Stings exposed corruption among some MPs in Britain and in India. But the police in India want to send to jail journalists who expose wrongdoing by sting operations.

On March 13, 2001, the website tehelka.com caught the Bharatiya Janata Party`s president Bangaru Laxman receiving tainted money. Other exposures at the same time compelled Defence Minister George Fernandes to resign. Tehelka was persecuted mercilessly thereafter.

It is, therefore, most reassuring that in a landmark judgment very recently, Justice S.N. Dhingra of the Delhi High Court upheld the legitimacy of stings as a right that belongs to all citizens. He squarely posed this question of “whether a citizen of this country has a right to conduct such sting operation to expose corruption by using agents provocateurs and to bring to the knowledge of the common man corruption at high strata of society” and answered it in the affirmative.

The facts were simple. In 2005 two journalists Aniruddha Bahal and Suhasini Raj conducted a sting operation to expose the practice of some MPs of taking money for asking questions in parliament. Television channels telecast footage of the operation on Dec 12, 2005. Neither the MPs` identity nor their misconduct was in doubt. Each house of parliament set up a committee to inquire into the conduct of its member.

The Delhi Police did not prosecute them. Instead, a year and a half later, they registered a case of abetment of bribery against them and a court of law issued summons against the journalists on July 6, 2009. They moved the high court which quashed the charge-sheet and the summons.

The police argued that the journalists ought to have reported the matter to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The judge dismissed the plea with these scathingly realistic words “I have no doubt in my mind that if the information would have been given by the petitioners to the police or the CBI, the respective MPs would have been given information by the police beforehand and would have been cautioned about the entire operation.”

The journalists did their duty by deposing truthfully before the committees of parliament. The point is that but for the sting the MPs` business would have continued to flourish. This is the justification of stings which the court upheld.

“In order to expose corruption at higher level and to show to what extent the state managers are corrupt, acting as agents provocateurs does not amount to committing a crime. The intention of the person involved is to be seen and the intention in this case is clear from the fact that the petitioners, after conducting this operation, did not ask police to register a case against the MPs involved but gave information to people at large as to what was happening.”

In Britain the issue was decided in favour of the press in 1994 on almost identical facts by the British Press Complaints Commission. It was set up as a self-regulatory measure by the press to enforce a code of conduct formulated, not by the commission, let alone the government, but by the press itself.

A committee of editors, under the chairmanship of the editor of the News of the World , Patricia Chapman, drew up the code. Editors are represented on the commission.

Paragraph seven of the code reads thus: “Misrepresentation — (i) Journalist should not generally obtain or seek to obtain information or pictures through misrepresentation or subterfuge. (ii) Unless in the public interest, documents or photographs should be removed only with the express consent of the owner. (iii) Subterfuge can be justified only in the public interest and only when material cannot be obtained by any other means.”

Paragraph 18 defines the expression “the public interest” as used in paragraph seven, besides other provisions such as paragraph five which says: “Unless justified by public interest, journalists should not obtain or publish material obtained by using clandestine listening devices or by intercepting private telephone conversation.” But what constitutes “the public interest”?

Paragraph 18 says: “Clauses 4 [privacy], 5, 7, 8 [harassment], and 9 [payment for articles] create exceptions which may be covered by invoking the public interest. For the purpose of this code that is most easily defined as: (i) detecting or exposing crime or a serious misdemeanour; (ii) protecting public health and safety; (iii) preventing the public from being misled by some statement or action of an individual or organisation.”

Paragraph 7 of the code was applied in The Sunday Times case. On July 10, 1994, the paper published a story under the headline “Revealed; MPs who accept £1,000 to ask a parliamentary question”. Within hours, two Conservative MPs, David Tredinnick and Graham Riddick, were suspended from their jobs as parliamentary private secretaries.

On July 17, the Press Complaints Commission gave its ruling: “In all the circumstances of this case, the commission considers that the subterfuge used was justified as the only effective investigative tool available by which the information concerned could be obtained.”

There is another aspect to it. The fundamental right to free speech includes the right to know. The media`s sting helps the people to know.

The writer is an author and a lawyer.

__________________
"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

The Social Media Revolution: Exploring the Impact on Journalism and News Media Organizations


Twitter. Facebook. Digg. MySpace. LinkedIn.

The list of social media tools could probably run on for paragraphs, and today’s technology changes so rapidly that many industries, including corporations and news media, can barely keep up. In the traditional world, newspapers, corporations, governments, or other types of leading organizations simply had to give out information, and people would consume it by reading or looking at it. But this seemingly tried-and-true method has started to transform. Simply making information available is not enough for today’s public. Today’s audiences expect to be able to choose what they read, and most believe they should be able to contribute content and opinions, too. This shift, sometimes called the social media revolution, is not the death of journalism as America always knew it; it’s the birth of a democratic movement that emphasizes some of journalism’s key factors: transparency, honesty, and giving a voice to the person who doesn’t have one.


Many traditional and non-traditional media outlets report and comment on how the Internet and social media, especially social networking, have begun to seriously affect news organizations and how they operate. Although newspapers currently face a crisis on how to make the news profitable in the digital age, that isn’t this report’s main focus. How papers will make money has been talked to death. So, instead, this report will focus on how social media, especially social networking sites like Twitter, has begun to affect the news organizations and changed — for better or worse — how journalists perform their jobs every day.




The main purpose of this report is to learn how the social media revolution has changed and will continue to change journalism and news organizations. To understand social media and its effects, one must read and analyze information gathered through journal articles, interviews and observations as this report has done. The report is broken into subtopics: a summary of the current state of traditional media; definitions and background information on what social media and social journalism are; social media tools professionals use and why; current event case studies in which social media played a role in reporting the news; ethical issues surrounding the social media shift; and how the future of the news media might look as a result of social media.

The report will respond to one simple, yet rather complex, question: What impact has social media had on news organizations? A question like this cannot be answered straightforward but must instead be explored. While the report will focus on what has already occurred, it will also look to the future and will consider whether public opinions of the mainstream media have helped spawn and accelerate the birth of the social media revolution. Results will lead the report to offer three areas within journalism that social media has significantly touched: the public’s trust of the news media in relation to social media; the relationship between local news organizations and social media; and how news is and will be covered using social media tools.

Social Media Literature Review



Media industry publications and critics often mention a media shift from traditional outlets, like newspapers and magazines, to digital news sources. Going a step beyond simply being online, media organizations have begun to consider how news organizations use social media tools to keep their audiences and, most importantly, to keep bringing in funds to support themselves. Myriad opinions and ideas on the topic exist on social media’s presence in the journalism world; the volume of information can seem overwhelming. However, this report will attempt to explain what has occurred and hypothesize on what the future holds for a world containing independent journalism and social media tools. The research gathered for this report can be grouped into four categories: the current state of traditional and social media; popular social media tools and how media use them; ethical issues surrounding journalists’ use of social media tools; and how a two-way, conversationally driven world will change journalism.

Understanding where traditional news organizations currently stand requires one to understand how audiences consume their news and what they think about the news business as it stands. Surveys by news organizations and foundations offer a way to understand the public’s thoughts quantitatively. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press conducted a survey in which it found, overall, respondents have less confidence that news organizations strive to report accurate, politically unbiased news than they had a few decades ago. In fact, the public’s confidence has reached its lowest level in more than two decades (“Public” 2). Despite this, the Pew survey showed most respondents still think watchdog journalism is critically important (“Public” 10-11). The poll also monitored consumers’ most-used news medium, finding audiences tend to obtain national and international news from TV and the Internet (“Public” 4). However, this and a survey study conducted by the National News Association (NNA) found the opposite seems to be true for local newspapers, especially weeklies (“Annual”). The NNA’s survey found the majority of respondents spend at least 40 minutes a week reading their local newspaper and often prefer the print over the online edition (“Annual”). A MediaPost article discussed a survey that found males tend to be more open to new media than females, and, to little surprise, the 18-to-34-year-old age group has seen the largest decline in traditional media usage (Loechner 1). This survey also found while most people said newspapers needed to change to remain relevant, users wouldn’t be willing to pay to read print magazines online (Loechner 1-2).

Before being able to define the relationship between social media and journalism, it’s vital to explain journalism’s purpose and troubles within the media industry as a whole. In a letter in the American Journalism Review, Kevin Klose wrote journalism in its purest form is about witnessing an event and recording them for others to see and read (Klose 2). Similarly, in another American Journalism Review article, Pamela J. Podger says journalism is about listening to those who have something to say (Podger 36). In his blog post titled “Social Journalism: Past, Present and Future,” Woody Lewis offers similar sentiments regarding what a “social journalist” is. He explains social media is about listening as well as interacting with others (Lewis). Another blogger, Vadim Lavrusik, described the change from one-way communication to a community affair and how the change will assist journalists. Others, including two authors for the fall 2009 online issue of Nieman Reports, Robert G. Picard and Richard Gordon, and Chris Martin of Chris Martin Public Relations, also expressed social media can help journalists do their jobs more effectively. Journalists aren’t the only ones who benefit from news organizations’ increased presence on social media.

Others have evaluated the news media and determined social media has not only benefited journalists but has also helped give individuals a way to speak up to the world. In a book titled “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies,” Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff argue social media has empowered individuals and has forced the idea of “news media” to morph whether or not the industry has desired this change (Li 5). In his book “Twitter Power,” Joel Comm argues a similar case, stating social media allows anyone to publish ideas at a relatively non-existent price (Comm 1). Despite its positives, some have found problems with journalists in the social media world. In articles written for the fall 2009 edition of Nieman Reports, Michael Skoler discusses the media’s flawed business model and how social media could help, while Geneva Overholser argues journalists need to talk more about social media (Skoler; Overholser). Finally, in his article, “The Continuing Need for Professional Journalism,” Shel Holtz argues how bloggers’ habit of covering what interests them rather than hard news that needs to be covered could seriously damage investigative journalism (Holtz).

Without tools and applications like Twitter, social media simply wouldn’t exist. Many media professionals have reported on how journalists can use these tools. In an article for Wired magazine, Steven Levy discusses how user-oriented, real-time Twitter is changing the news media (Levy). In an article for the American Journalism Review titled “The Twitter Explosion,” Paul Farhi discusses these aspects, relating them to those in journalism and media careers (Farhi). Two writers, Courtney Lowery and Leah Betancourt, discuss how to use (and how not to use) social media tools like Twitter for journalistic purposes (Lowery; Betancourt). Lowery goes a bit deeper than Betancourt by describing her own newspaper’s experiences with social media tools in her Nieman Reports article (Lowery). In her article for the American Journalism Review, Podger explores the importance of social media in journalism but doesn’t force employees to use the tools. However, a large number of Americans use them anyway, perhaps even more than e-mail, according to a Mashable blog entry written by Adam Ostrow (Ostrow). Facebook and Twitter are becoming more important than ever, and part of the tools’ popularity stems from the ability to easily create one’s own applications, as Gordon’s class did. The class made a tool called NewsMixer for Facebook (Gordon). Also, Christine Greenhow and Jeff Reifman conducted a study on Facebook community involvement by creating and observing different Facebook applications (Greenhow). Finally, while these tools are popular and important, they aren’t alone. Tools like Digg.com allow users to “digg” an article or Web site they like and share it with others (Li 3). Both Li and Skoler suggest Digg.com is so useful because users trust what other users suggest for reading material as opposed to what members of the mainstream media, such as editors, might suggest (Li; Skoler).

The third literature topic required a wide use of newspaper articles because it evaluates coverage of recent international and national events. Four major events show how useful social media tools, especially Twitter, can be. The most recent event is the Nov. 5, 2009, shootings in Fort Hood, Texas. This report examines the situation using a weekly news report from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and an article from the Columbia Journalism Review’s Web site. Both of these articles discuss how social media tools — especially Twitter — allowed journalists and the public alike to report occurrences quicker than in the past, although possibly with some errors (“Pew Research”). Megan Garber’s article at cjr.org titled “Fort Hood: A First Test for Twitter Lists” examines Twitter’s new list feature and how journalists used it to report on the Fort Hood shootings (Garber).

__________________
"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

Citizen Journalism:



Amidst a professional culture that shapes midtown Manhattan, the mass media industry dominates. Residing within the hovering skyscrapers are some of the nation's most renowned publishers of traditional print journalism; companies such as The New York Times, Hearst, Condé Nast, and TIME Inc have become widely known American media conglomerates. Consequent to recent innovations in Internet technology, a public that was previously dependant on professional journalists for news coverage has now taken the role of the reporter in contemporary online media.

"Being able to see this as the advent of true democracy in what had been a media oligarchy makes it much easier to argue that Internet journalism has already achieved great things," says

the dean of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Nicholas Lemann, in a recent New Yorker article titled "Amateur House: Journalism Without Journalists." This branch of press coverage known as citizen journalism utilizes the Internet to create a more accessible form of reporting and consequently places the future of traditional print journalism in question.

In following the course of American media set by radio and television broadcasting, citizen journalism poses the newest threat to traditional news coverage. As modernization continues to foreshadow the future of mass media, recent advances in Internet based technology have contributed to the increasing relevance of online journalism.


"Societies create structures of authority for producing and distributing knowledge, information, and opinion. These structures are always waxing and waning, depending not only on the invention of new means of communication but also on political, cultural, and economic developments,"


says Mr. Lemann in his New Yorker article. As traditional publications are tested against the evil forces of blogging, they demonstrate a staying power where citizen journalism is greatly lacking. Mainly rooted in their practices of original reporting, printed news coverage maintains qualities of objectivity and media ethic which the Society of [COLOR="rgb(0, 100, 0)"]Professional Journalists give voice to in its Code of Ethics:
[/COLOR]
The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.

Traditional organizations greatly depend on the dedication of fulltime reporters to fulfill these basic expectations. Although Americans once valued the credibility of professional journalism, it seems their standards have permitted a lesser quality of ethics in order to satisfy a more citizen based etiquette.

Infringing on a realm of professionalism, citizen journalists express opinion but often lack the skills necessary for providing credible news coverage. In taking an alternate form of dissemination, online journalism has consequently become means of unconventional reporting and, for this reason, is often a source of concern for traditional journalists. Citizen journalists often work fulltime jobs and contribute to as a hobby yet are expected to deliver news as a professional organization would. In fact, it is work done by professionals that online publications depend on for original reporting and becomes a basis for commentary and opinion. While the Internet overtakes printed news coverage, it is consequently aiding in the demise of a media that greatly supports it. As discussed by Times technology reporter John Markoff in an interview with Online Journalism Review, "I certainly can see that scenario, where all these new technologies may only be good enough to destroy all the old standards but not create something better to replace them…" As citizen journalism poses a huge threat to traditional print media, it reveals the potential to eliminate not only itself, but the American media industry.

Citizen journalism provides for public control over the media through blogs, online publications, and other Internet resources. In a society that greatly values personal expression, the majority opinion can be greatly credited for shaping its every aspect. As demonstrated by popular trends in American culture discussed by oped columnist Roger Cohen in his NYTimes.com article titled "Is There Wisdom in Crowds?", "Zagat has proved a global winner, as has American Idol. We live in an age when people love to know what everyone else thinks and the means exist to convey those thoughts instantaneously online." As a public forum for news coverage, there is no definite line between fact and opinion.

Upon my exposure to this world of journalism where sites such as OhMyNews.com promise "Every Citizen is a Reporter," I couldn't help but wonder if I could be one too. 500 words later I found that yes, even I could be a citizen journalist. After about a dozen emails confirming my (free) registration to citizen journalism sites such as Huliq.com,


AssociatedContent.com, and Amazines.com, I copy, pasted, and clicked the submit button. While some posted my article immediately, others took a few days to 'edit' it and then post. It was not long, however, before searching each site prompted my article and I officially declared myself a citizen journalist. My experience as a citizen journalist has confirmed that in fact "Every Citizen is a Reporter"; and while they really mean every citizen, one can't help but wonder whose work they'll be reading next.

"This is not about replacing the professionals. This is about complementing them, improving their work with additional questions and facts, doing the things they can’t do because there are not enough of them," says journalist Jeff Jarvis in his blog BuzzMachine.com. In consideration of the great lengths citizen journalism has come thus far, the potential of new media is undoubtedly there, "But none of that yet rises to the level of a journalistic culture rich enough to compete in a serious way with the old media—to function as a replacement rather than an addendum," says Mr. Lemann. With a revised approach, perhaps new media will demonstrate the ability to coexist alongside its predecessor (and not destroy it.)As traditional publications survived the emergence of news radio and television broadcasting, we have reason to believe it will again take this path.

__________________
"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

The ban on books By A.G. Noorani



AMONG the bad habits which we inherited from the British Raj, is a marked propensity to ban books. In 1976, a distinguished American scholar, N. Gerald Barrier published a book with the pithy title Banned. It documented all the books and pamphlets which the British banned in India from 1907 till independence.

About the only redeeming feature in the recent unseemly furore in India over Joseph Lelyveld’s book Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India is that the governments of India and of the states refused to ban it. The only and ugly exception was the government of Gujarat, headed by Narendra Modi, under whose watch a pogrom of Muslims was staged in
2002. He hoped to win kudos for being the first to ban and now finds himself alone and ridiculed.

Book-banning is inspired by the same mentality which promotes book-burning. It is no function of the state to prescribe a select bibliography to its citizens and undermine the fundamentals of democracy. Before pursuing this theme, however, one must reckon with a certain trend in the West which justifies wilful intentional insult as an exercise of free speech; specifically insult to the faith of Islam and to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). In truth, the trend has only accentuated in recent months; for, as James Carrol recalled, in an article in The New York Times earlier this month, “Contempt towards the religion of Muhammad is a foundational pillar of western civilisation. That it is unacknowledged only makes it more pernicious.”



Minou Reeve’s splendid work Muhammad in Europe documents 1,000 years of western denigration. The Danish cartoons are in that tradition. The answer lies not in a frenzy of book-banning, still less in violence but in a two-pronged approach. One is the approach of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan the founder of the Aligarh movement. As Dr Zakir Hussain reminded the students of the Aligarh Muslim University when he was its vice-chancellor, Sir Syed’s answer to William Muir’s biased Life of Muhammad was a work of scholarship entitled A Series of Essays on the Life of Muhammad and Subjects Subsidiary There to.

A marked feature of the style of advocates of book-banning is a reluctance to join in reasoned refutation. The other prong is recourse to judicial verdict. Books cannot be banned by a mere executive order unless it is supported by law. The law can be challenged as an infringement of the right to freedom of speech and expression if it gives carte blanche to the state. Section 11 of India’s Sea Customs Act, 1962 gives New Delhi unfettered power to prohibit import of any literature inter alia for any


“purpose conducive to the interests of the general public”. This is patently unconstitutional.



Salman Rushdie won sympathy from some in India because his book The Satanic Verses was banned under this act. The issue got blurred. It was clearly defined by a great English judge Lord Scarman who regretted that the law of blasphemy protected Christianity alone. He ruled in the House of Lords in 1979


“I do not subscribe to the view that the common law offence of blasphemous libel serves no useful purpose in the modern law. On the contrary, I think that there is a case for legislation extending it to protect the religious beliefs and feelings of non-Christians. The offence belongs to a group of criminal offences designed to safeguard the internal tranquillity of the kingdom. In an increasingly plural society such as that of modern Britain it is necessary not only to respect the different religious beliefs, feelings and practices of all but also to protect them from scurrility, vilification, ridicule and contempt.”

That is an abuse of the right to free speech which is unprotected under Article 19 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 19 of the Pakistani constitution and Article 19 (2) of the Indian constitution.

The law provides a mechanism for striking a fair balance between the right and its limits. Pakistan and India inherited the Criminal Procedure Code, 1898 and amended it. Section 99B empowered the state to forfeit literature which offended against the law. In India, that category was significantly expanded in the new code of 1973, based on the old one. It includes deliberate and malicious insult to religion. However, every such order was open to challenge, under S. 99C of the code of 1898, to a review by a three-man bench of the high court. The 1973 code retains these provisions.

Advocates of book-banning have no patience with the legal route. They prefer, instead, to whip up mass frenzy and take the law into their own hands. It is a consistent feature of such agitations that they are based on ignorance of the contents of the book. They rely on a ready response from the growing constituency of bigotry. On Jan 5, 2004 in Poona (now Pune), men of the Sambhaji Brigade ransacked the premises of an internationally famous institution of learning, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, damaging several rare manuscripts and priceless articles. Its crime? It had permitted James Laine to draw on its resources to write his book Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India. He had consulted over 30 works in Marathi. The book was published by a highly respected firm, Oxford University Press. Activists across India and abroad denounced the vandalism and the Maharashtra government’s ban. It was quashed by the Supreme Court in July 2010.

The furore over Joseph Lelyveld’s book was based on a review by Andrew Robinson in The Wall Street Journal before its publication in India. No one accepts the reviewer’s inference that the book described Gandhi as a “racist” and a “bisexual”.

The material on which Lelyveld drew is available in published works. Underlying the shrill cries for bans on books is a shrewd assessment of the weakness of governments and their abject surrender to frenzy.

In 1989, the Supreme Court of India asked, in a case of film censorship: “We want to put the anguished question, what good is the protection of freedom of expression if the state does not take care to protect it? …It is the duty of the state to protect the freedom of expression since it is a liberty guaranteed against the state. The state cannot plead its inability to handle the hostile audience problem. It is its obligatory duty to prevent it and protect the freedom of expression.”

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"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"

Social media revolution By Bina Shah | From the Newspaper



AFTER the recent successful Social Media Summit in Karachi, a number of people have started paying attention to the bloggers, the Twitter users and the Facebook addicts.

The realisation’s sinking in that social media isn’t just a game or a useless pastime. Summit attendee Mohammed El Dahshan, an Egyptian blogger who was at the forefront of the recent Egyptian revolution, spoke movingly at a panel about how Egyptian bloggers reported on both technical and social matters during the days in which Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power, gaining the trust of the people who could no longer rely on the government to tell them the truth about their country.

From this we can extrapolate that in countries like Pakistan, the blogosphere, Twitter and Facebook users are the ones who
will lead the way to drastic change in Pakistani society because these people are the true revolutionaries in stagnant societies:

young, educated, progressive, eloquent and completely dissatisfied with the status quo, but still optimistic and idealistic
enough to actively foment change, rather than sinking into cynicism and passivity.

Pakistanis who use social media formulate ideas, discuss them freely with their peers, with intellectuals and with those leaders who are intelligent enough to have caught on to the zeitgeist. They argue vociferously, disseminate information and they meet, both in virtual space and real space. They make plans for action, and then they carry them out.

Twitter accelerates the energy promulgated by social activism; bloggers think, analyse and interpret the news in a deeper way than mainstream media; the Facebookers build strong social networks based on personal credibility. It all comes together in what’s been jokingly called ‘the Twitter hive mind’, or ‘crowdsourcing’, where the minds of many people work together in a virtual environment to come up with ideas bigger than what individuals can generate. This is where social media derives its power.

What are the rules of the Republic of Twitter? Is Twitter a hierarchy, a democracy (Twittocracy) or a space for anarchy? Who are its people: Tweeple? Twitterati? We don’t know the answers to these questions yet as social media is still evolving rapidly, but it’s safe to say that what happens in social media is Pakistan’s version of a healthy, vibrant society, because we don’t have that in real life.

It’s self-policing. It’s gender neutral. There’s a strong sense of civic duty, of social consciousness. People are eager to do right and to see justice achieved in society. When abusive behaviour, called ‘trolling’, or sexual harassment occurs, the perpetrator is named and shamed, shouted down, blocked and reported.

There is relative safety online; although online activities can have real-world repercussions. In Pakistan we’re fortunate this hasn’t happened yet as it has in Syria or Libya, where bloggers have been arrested and ‘disappeared’ by repressive governments. Social media has worked in Pakistan to build communities with a global flavour. It’s a soapbox on Hyde Park Corner, Karachi community centre, American town hall and Lahori teahouse all in one. It reflects society in real life, but it also has its own effects on society and language.

People have already turned ‘tweet’ into one of the most powerful words in the English language, the way ‘friend’, ‘Facebook’ and ‘blog’ have become some of the most revolutionary words to enter the Oxford Dictionary. They’re all verbs that never existed before, and verbs are the action words of our language — these ones describe actions that never existed before the advent of social media. But one thing emerged from the social media summit that is very clear: social media is the place where change is engineered, fermented and documented, but it has to go beyond online activism, or ‘clicktivism’.

Sitting in the comfort of your home, clicking ‘like’ buttons and signing online petitions will never be enough to achieve social transformation. There has to be street protest, community outreach, personal contact, commitment and follow-through for social media to really have achieved effective change.

Summit attendee Rebecca Chiao of Egypt spoke on a panel for women and social activism in the online sphere about Harassmap, a project which uses online technology to battles sexual harassment of women in Cairo. If a woman is harassed on the street, she can email, text or phone in, and the location of the incident is marked on an online map which other women can access in order to avoid that area.

This became such a powerful movement that the communication ministry approached the founders of Harassmap to discuss its reach. But Harassmap goes further than just plotting danger points on an online map: they go door to door in Cairo and help women who need support in a very real, physical sense. Volunteers conduct training sessions, talk to women face-to-face, make good on the virtual connections by following them up with real ones, giving support and power to a previously disempowered population.

‘Facebook’, ‘Twitter’, ‘blogs’ may be scary words and ideas to some people who don’t yet understand the technology. They will soon become power words as more and more people understand not just how they work, but what change they can effect in people’s lives in Pakistan.

So don’t dismiss social media as a toy to keep your children and teenagers amused. Social media is fast becoming the tool for social revolution, and Pakistan, crying out for change that can be enacted without violence or bloodshed, is at the forefront of a very exciting future.

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"Wa tu izzu man-ta shaa, wa tu zillu man-ta shaa"