iraqi bloggers
Good idea from Jeff Jarvis in its Buzzmachine. Because Western reporters are pretty much blocked in the "green zone" of Baghdad - the only alternative seems to accept to become an embedded journalist! -, Buzzmachine provides a list of Baghdad bloggers who report on daily life in an unsecure country.
- Bertrand Pecquerie, "Baghdad bloggers come back," editorsweblog.org may 17, 2004
... You should be doing that anyway, since these folks give us a perspective you big-time reporters simply are not giving us. But you should be doing this especially now that you can't get out and report the news.
Of course, these aren't "real journalists." That means they don't have suits and expense accounts. But they have eyes and ears and keyboards and they give us a viewpoint we need to see. So you can issue caveats aplenty.
But then read them. Quote them. Share them. Just go to Zeyad's blog and start clicking on his blogroll to find the brothers Omar, Mohammad and Ali or Ays, Alaa , Raed, Raed's family, River, Firas Georges, Sam , Kurdo's World, Sarmad, and Baghdadi (an Iraqi-American who has been back and forth).
- Jeff Jarvis, "Memo to Baghdad bureaus: Get bloggers," BuzzMachine may 17, 2004
posted May 17, 2004 in politics, print