Open-source journalism and press freedom
On a list of 167 countries around the world, where would you expect the U.S. to rank in terms of press freedom? Top 20? Maybe even Top 10?
Try 44th. And that's down steeply from 17th in 2002, says Reporters Without Borders, which has conducted the rankings annually since 2005.
Who ranks ahead of us? Several former Soviet client states, for starters, including the Baltic states and much of Eastern Europe. I wonder whether that's because they suffered so much, for so long, under government censorship that they are less tolerant of anything that might look like its return.
Even South Korea, governed mostly by authoritarians since the end of the Korean War, ranks 10 spots ahead of the U.S. One important reason why is the success there of the citizen-journalism effort OhMyNews.
Could the flowering of citizen journalism here help restore the U.S. to the upper reaches of the press-freedom rankings? (And, yes, I am aware that the question assumes that such a restoration would be a Good Thing.)
Comments (9)
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-- Agent Joe
Posted on November 1, 2005 2:38 PM
Cool! Tell me where the microphone is so I can be sure to speak clearly and distinctly in its direction. I certainly wouldn't want to be misunderstood. Because, as a great and wise political philosopher once said, that would be wrong.
Posted on November 1, 2005 2:48 PM
Also, hi, Roch.
Posted on November 1, 2005 2:49 PM
Ruh roh.
Posted on November 1, 2005 3:38 PM
Darn IP addresses.
Posted on November 1, 2005 3:44 PM
"We do not match this information with a specific user or his or her personally identifiable information."
Uh, well, maybe sometimes we do.
Posted on November 1, 2005 4:14 PM
The site doesn't, to my knowledge. However, our blogging software, Movable Type -- as do most blog comment management systems, including, I'm quite sure, yours -- records IP addresses of commenters. I searched to see whether that particular IP address had ever showed up here before, et voila, I found comments from the same IP address with your name on them. No tracing or other big computer voodoo involved.
I don't use the tool often except to ban servers that send us trackback spam (of which we get hundreds/day), but it's there if a commenter crosses the line.
Posted on November 1, 2005 9:21 PM
"We" in the privacy policy is not just "the site." Your privacy policy states that users will not be matched with tracking data. You did -- and then used that information to reveal the identity behind a psuedonym. Not cool, Lex.
Posted on November 2, 2005 2:31 PM
Roch, I popped you because, in the context of the post, I presumed you were just having some fun. (For the benefit of those third parties reading this exchange, Roch and I know each other in real life.)
Moreover, if you had never posted here before from that IP address, or had never done so under your real name, I wouldn't have been able to identify you. (Someone else here with more technical ability might have been able to, perhaps.)
If you want to have a serious discussion about our privacy policy, I'm happy to do that. If you want to suggest some change in our policy and/or procedure, go right ahead. I'll listen. That's my job.
Posted on November 2, 2005 3:33 PM