Tag Archives: Russia

Democracy and the media go together like…

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Ditchley ParkLike Jeff Jar­vis, Charlie Beck­ett, and Richard Sam­brook, I too was at Ditch­ley recently for a con­fer­ence on the media and demo­cracy. Present com­pany excep­ted, it brought together a fas­cin­at­ing and lively group of people (not always the case at conferences).

Sir Jeremy Green­stock, formerly Britain’s man at the UN and in Iraq (and someone who speaks in per­fect para­graphs), gives his impres­sions below (bold, ital­ics, and broken paras are me).

For the record, I’m more pess­im­istic about demo­cracy than about journ­al­ism — but I also think Google — the acci­dental mono­pol­ist — should step up to the plate and fund some inde­pend­ent con­tent resource (listen — that’s the sound of me not hold­ing my breath). Con­tinue read­ing →

How to engineer an Anglo-Russian rapprochement

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Arrange a meet­ing at a sum­mit. Prior to the meet­ing, ensure gov­ern­ment offi­cials drop reas­sur­ing hints about the need to improve relations:

Rus­sia now poses its biggest threat to Bri­tain since the Cold War, accord­ing to secur­ity sources. MI5 fears that Bri­tain has been swamped with spies since the break­down of rela­tions over the tit-for-tat accus­a­tions over the pois­on­ing of former KGB officer Alex­an­der Litv­inenko. [Tele­graph]

Con­tinue read­ing →

Foreign correspondents — a dying breed unmourned by the audience

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In an ele­giac mus­ing by Jon Fried­man on the decline of the tra­di­tional for­eign cor­res­pond­ent, Why for­eign cor­res­pond­ents are a dying breed, there is a wel­come real­ity check in the com­ments from one of those people formerly known as… read it below and remem­ber who you write for.

For­eign cor­res­pond­ents (and all journ­al­ists) are becom­ing increas­ingly use­less. Is it any won­der advert­ising rev­enue is fall­ing for anti­quated pur­vey­ors of “news”? I can get webcam/video of almost any­where in the world right this second, read blogs from posters through­out the world on demand — who the heck needs “news” agen­cies at all? Freel­an­cing is the future of all inform­a­tion industry, as was alluded to in the article.

And cry me a river about journ­al­ists becom­ing “dis­en­chanted” … oh, so sad, we are no longer power­ful, import­ant, entrenched, Edward R. Mur­row wan­nabe, with end­less fund­ing and job secur­ity forever. Hey m*****, half the U.S. IT jobs are now liv­ing in India and Rus­sia, and most of us work daily with our teams over­seas. We are d*** well aware of what’s going on in the world, because our live­li­hoods depend on it. Adapt, find a new way to work, or get run over. Wel­come to the real world, kids.