The BBC and the Handbook for Cyber-Dissidents

In 2005, the BBC posted a link on its official website to the “Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents,” a document produced by Reporters Without Borders. The guidebook offers “advice about how to blog anonymously, as well as how to identify the most suitable way to circumvent censorship” and was directed at and used by people in Iran, China, and Burma (and elsewhere).

Did the BBC violate the premise of journalistic objectivity by “siding” with people limited by censorship in their home countries?

Download the handbook.

Read more about the controversy:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4271062.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7012984.stm

Globalistion and the Media – a great documentary

A great documentary about “the impact which new technology is having on the role of the traditional news-gatherer.”

Particularly good sections include:

6’25″ – Environmental protesters barricade themselves inside the Shell offices and transmit live press releases and video of the police coming to get them six hours later.

12’40″ – Perspectives from IndyMedia.org on how the internet reflects the “new kind of political organizing.”