"Online and in Jail"

The Committee to Protect Journalists is reporting that 45 percent of journalists that were put in jail in 2008 were web-based reporters or bloggers. Let's put this another way: you are more likely to be jailed for being a journalist if you publish your reporting via the World Wide Web than any other medium. Wow. So much for hoping that the Internet could provide a cover for those trying to report the news in countries that, well, don't exactly welcome a free and independent press.

The VOA's reporting of the findings highlights the most egregious violators: "Among the countries singled out for their hostile press environments were Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, Zimbabwe and Cuba." This is especially interesting given the recent cuts in funding for American broadcasting to Russia, China's pledge to sink billions in creating English and Arabic-language international broadcasters to compete with CNN, the BBC and Al-Jazeera, Iran's recent crackdown on BBC Persian and most recently the GAO's report that found that, despite the $500 million that the US government has devoted to broadcasting radio and TV to Cuba, "Radio and TV Martí’s audience size is small, with less than 2 percent of respondents to telephone surveys since 2003 reporting that they had tuned in to Radio or TV Martí during the past week."

Thus, I'll ask again, is the Internet and its associated revolution in communication technologies actually opening up previously close societies, or is this further evidence of governments demonstrating their ability to control the flow of information despite it? 2008's crackdown on online journalism is further evidence of concern that governments are indeed winning the war over who is in control of the World Wide Web. On that note, I'm signing off!