New Media continues to undermine national boundaries. As the riots unfold on the streets of Iraq, I'm getting photographs and updates through Twitter. Twitter: It's More Than Ashton Kutcher.
With Twitter, CNN, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, and cellphones, domestic affairs can't be insider affairs anymore. We have access to them, and they have access to us. Media and Politics is traditionally taught as an American government class, but media is really an international creature now.
So here are some links from the blogosphere on Iran. Sullivan has tweets from people on the street. And Sullivan has a great weekend round up here.
UPDATE: A video from the New York Times on New Media and Iran. From the New Yorker, Laura Secor: Iran's Stolen Election.
Sullivan asks why isn't MSM covering the Iran election? McArdle says, "The print media is hamstrung by the fact that they've slashed their foreign bureaus to the bone--and then amputated the bone. There are too few journalists in too few places to cover a big story like this."
Gah. This is why I shouldn't even read quotes from McArdle, and Sullivan only when I'm in the mood for extra drama. A one-person bureau will set a paper back a quarter of a million per year without even breaking a sweat. Considering the hindrances to journalism there, a bureau could easily double that budget. And it's not like Tehran is in any newspaper owner's top 10 places to put a bureau.
Numbers like that are one of the sources of the old saw that the best way to make a small fortune in newspaper publishing is to start with a large one. (Wish I could remember where I read the blog entry on "Why Sept 11 proves my politics were correct" because that's what I see here; S & McA are confirming their priors without particularly thinking.)
Posted by: Doug | June 15, 2009 at 01:53 PM
Funny that you're posting about Twitter's power the day after you declared it dead because your dad knows what it is. :)
I use Twitter for news-related stuff mostly. I have friends on Twitter, but I like it more for the more distant/non-personal, news- or work-related stuff. I like Facebook to connect with the people in my life.
Re lack of international bureaus: isn't that what stringers have been for? To cover news in areas that don't get regular coverage?
Posted by: Wendy | June 15, 2009 at 06:51 PM