25th Mar 2003
Blogs and War
Well, it’s now officially everyone favorite story this week:
- Chicago Sun Times: Web surfing for war junkies
- Washington Post: Blogging the War: A Guide
- Reuters: U.S. Soldier ‘Bloggers’ Report from War Zone
- Guardian: Conflict of interest: the sites you need to see
- NYT: Reporting Reflects Anxiety
- USA Today: Web logs convey ‘raw stuff’ of war
- Star Ledger: For war newshounds, nothing beats blogging
- WSJ (via Yahoo): Web Logs: Troops’ War Stories In Real Time
- San Jose Merc: Web offers varied perspectives on war coverage
- Boston Globe: On-the-spot blogs from war
- More Boston Globe: Do-it-yourself war coverage
- Canadian Press: The Iraqi war on the Internet
Much as I’m glad to see the topic covered, it just goes to illustrate one of the things most wrong with traditional media today: pack mentality.
Also, the latest issue of The New Yorker has a short feature about everyone’s favorite Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, although it is not available online. Frankly, I worry about Salam for all the press attention he’s getting. The New Yorker piece, for example, gives a physical description of him (based on photos he sent to his American friend Diane), identifies him as a gay guy, the son of a powerful family and an architect working for a Lebonese firm. How hard with all that info would it be for the Iraqi torture police to track him down, given what a celebrity the U.S. media has made of him of late? While apparently he has ambivalent feelings about the invasion, if I were he, I would certainly be wishing for its swift success, because if the thugs have time to turn their attention back to business as usual, I’d venture he’s a dead man.
The above NYT piece further identifies Salam as 28 years old, as well as quoting blog media darling Nick Denton.
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