The rise of Alternative Media

Below is an extract from littlespeck.com showing how important is alternative media and how hypocritical main stream media has become. We are gradually seeing the demise of msm when serious news is concerned. The credibility of msm is at stake and soon it will be buried for good. Coverage News blackout With the press silenced, Ma;aysian city-folks rely on new media and foreign agencies for protest coverage, but not so for many rural Malaysians. Nov 13, 2007 By mediaslut The Malaysian government was reported to have ordered a blackout of any news and photos in the country’s main-stream media of the BERSIH rally held in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, on Saturday, Nov 10 2007. The rally was well publicised and with a blackout in old media, where did the curious or concerned go to get information about the protest? They went to the blogs of Malaysians and protest participants who took photos and wrote their account of the demonstration online. They went on Technorati and searched the keyword “Bersih” and probably visited one of the 493 blogs post tagged with the keyword “Bersih”. Jeff Ooi reported a spike of visitors to his blog, Jeffooi.com, over the weekend. From an average of 5,000 - 6,000 visitors on sleepy weekends, Jeff reported 24,600 page-views with 21,000 unique visitors to his blog on that Saturday itself. There was a time when the medium was only the radio, television and papers. The cost of producing anything for them was expensive and out of the reach for the common man and woman. The cost of distribution was also exorbitant. Today, the medium is the Internet and the tool they call a blog. Another can set up a blog and go “live” on the internet within minutes, for free. The cost of distribution has also gone down with blog search engines such as Technorati or Google. The cost of creating such content’s also now affordable to the masses. A mobile phone is even touted as the ultimate journalist tool and could be bought at a relative low price depending on the plans provided by the service provider. It takes photos, records audio and video, and can be uploaded to the blog in minutes. How effective is a government ordered old media blackout today? Ahirudin Attan, the person behind rockybru.blogspot.com and a former journalist, called the blackout a severe blow to Malaysian journalism as “people had to rely on foreign TV stations, blogs and wire news to know what happened at the rally”. (mediaslut) Meanwhile, Jeff Ooi wrote in his Screenshots blog: - The BERSIH rally remained top news of the hour, every hour, since 3.00pm on Al-Jazeera International yesterday. I was in the Al-Jazeera studio to give live commentaries during the 3.00pm, 4.00pm and 6.00pm bulletins over Astro Channel 513. There will be a live crossover with Anwar Ibrahim during the 8.00pm prime time news last night. There are visuals that show Al-Jazeera correspondent getting doused in the chemical-laced waterjets the Police shot at the crowd.. One blogger wrote, “Malaysian journalism took a severe blow. People had to rely on foreign tv stations, blogs and wire news to know what happened at the rally. ”There was hardly any report in the government-controlled media.” Another, anil netto, added: “Mainstream media coverage was pathetic. I woke up this morning expecting it to be front-page news. After all, news of the protest gathering had flashed across the globe yesterday. ”But when I saw the front page of The Sunday Star today… zilch, nada, nothing…. Was this for real? It seemed as if I must have been on a different planet. ”It was only reported half-heartedly on page 8. Tens of thousands of people had brought Kuala Lumpur to a virtual standstill the day before and .. Page 8!” Nov 13, 2007