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Information Wants to Be Free: Bloggers Go To Jail
Clearly LOL were not suggesting here that journalist Neil Sterio's typing should get him flung into jail. But Robert Mahoney records the fact that online journalists now form the largest group of journalists under lock and key. Almost half the total of 125 are bloggers and our professional cousins. The Committee to Protect Journalists provides the roster, and the pi-chart, and how you can express your solidarity and help. It has been great seeing Alan Johnston back reporting for the BBC. From India last time I looked. 125 scribblers, tappers, snappers and the rest are currently imprisoned for expressing themselves.
Guido, not of course a proper writer and a man who should be locked up for his persistent drink crimes and toxic cynicism, makes do with house arrest, tag and curfew. He's more concerned with the spiking of a 1976 album sleeve and spreading paranoia than with reality. Perhaps the BPJ could start a campaign? UPDATE Fri 08:17: Toxic cynicism and penultimate sentence/link added in response to comment.
3 comments:
Arrange a hostage swap. Staines for half a dozen proper journalists, reflecting his rather high opinion of himself.
Steady on Chris. Journalism isn't necessarily to report news, it's to capture the attention, to provoke and opine. I don't agree with George Monbiot generally but I love the way he writes. Toynbee's made an arse of herself by shifting allegiance and deciding that only she knows what the Labour movement is.
Hattersley can write well. Mat Parris & Simon Hoggart are incredibly talented (c'mon - accept it).
Hacks aren't judges or politicians - they live off booze and bullshit - oh, perhaps they are politicians. Honely Joking.
Presumably all this dear Dick is a paean to GuF's claims as a proper journalist of some kind? I'm not buying that I'm afraid. He is a rabble rousing pamphleteer. And he calls his own commentariat "window lickers".
Anyways, this is not really about Mr GuF.
It's about the fact that until 11 years ago no internet journalists were locked up by repressive forces. Now there are 58. Instead of covering this GuF was moaning about the supression of an album sleeve from 1976 that even the band - at the time - admitted was wrong.
Guido blamed the government for censorship with his "they've come to get us all" paranoia. It was not the government. But other governments have been locking up bloggers.
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