From Pigeons to News Portals: Foreign Reporting and the Challenge of New Technology

4. Bloggers as the New “Foreign” Foreign Correspondents: Personal Publishing as Public Affairs

70 4 bloggers as the new ÒforeignÓ foreign correspondents Personal Publishing as Public Affairs KAYE SWEETSER TRAMMELL AND DAVID D. PERLMUTTER introduction: bloggers as foreign correspondents As detailed in several other chapters in this book, the definition of “foreign correspondent” is increasingly confounded by new media technology and practices. Heretofore, the term evoked a picture of a ruffled “old China (or Moscow, or Paris, or Beirut) hand” whose baggage trail included a Remington typewriter, a whisky flask, and an expense account book from a major print publication or syndicate. In other words, the traditional source of foreign affairs coverage for most Americans was an American employee of a large American news organization. In contrast, consider the case of today’s freelance reporter Christopher Allbritton, who successfully set up a personal Web site and asked readers to make online donations to finance his travels to Iraq.1 The so-called PayPal journalist was then able to tell the story to his paid readers rather than adopt an editor’s focus or bias. On his site, Allbritton calls his work “pure, individual journalism using a laptop and a satellite phone,”2 done without the protection of the Department of Defense embedding program or a bulletproof vest. But an even more striking revolution is under way in the technology, economics, and sociology of learning about foreign peoples, events, and issues via media. In the entire history of mass media and journalism, it was the norm for Americans to hear the voices of other peoples by listening to, reading, or watching media created and transmitted by the government or by the mainstream U.S.-based press. Foreigners—unless they were leaders, diplomats, or prominent dissidents—tended to be quoted only as human interest filler or exemplars of larger issues: e.g., “Ahmed the fisherman does not know what to make of the political upheaval in Cairo. . . .” The onset of the commercial Internet in the 990s promised to byVERSO 7 pass these traditional channels: people could access news of foreign lands via (a) the Web sites of their newspapers or governments, (b) independent media that in many cases challenged official points of view and mainstream media consensus, and (c) more rarely, the personal Web sites of the citizens of other countries. Then, beginning in the late 990s and building to a tidal wave of popularity and power by 2004, a new genre of Web literature took front stage as a source of foreign affairs information. The phenomenon is the blog, short for Weblog: as most commonly defined, an online compendium of news, opinion, and debate by individuals. Here we examine foreign independent blogs that have become extensions of, sources for, or replacements of traditional foreign affairs reporting . Their creators and contributors have the ability to talk to us directly, as the common phrase goes, “from ground zero,” from Berlin to Beijing to the Congo. Perhaps more important, we the home-front audience can post comments, ask questions—that is, interact—with the stranger in a strange land, even if we are at war with her or his country. So to read a story about events in Baghdad, we no longer need CBS or the Associated Press; we have Salam Pax and his ordinary Iraqi’s personal perspective describing the bombs falling outside his front door. Or to catch up on breaking news about the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan we can turn to an instantly created blog, Akaevu.net, and get the “scoop” while the traditional networks’ correspondents are still on the plane from Moscow. In short, while in the past there have been times when the reporter becomes a part of the story,3 this chapter explores how blogs allow the citizen reporter to become the story. background: the whole world is blogging Blogs, as of this writing in late 2006, are the hot media trend, although others like podcasting, YouTube, and Facebook offer new venues for the same developments. The Technorati Internet analysis service reports tracking 6 million blogs, from practically all nations.4 Up to two-thirds of Americans on line report that they have consulted a blog some time in the last year. A recent Pew Internet and American Life report on the state of blogging found that many blog readers used the medium for political and campaign news during the 2004 U.S. presidential election.5 Moreover, blogs have received an immense amount of media attention in connection with Bloggers as the...