War 2.0: the 24/7 English language news front

In the Jer­u­s­alem Post, Mitchell Barak calls for an Israeli Al Jaz­eera Eng­lish. Con­tinue read­ing

War 2.0: Israel’s post-journalism campaign in Gaza

YouTube IDF channelWhatever ones views of the rights and wrongs, Israel’s media oper­a­tion to accom­pany its Gaza offens­ive has been an object les­son in the uses and lim­it­a­tions of War 2.0.

Talk­ing to a senior Middle East­ern dip­lo­mat yes­ter­day, and to a friend report­ing from (or stuck) in Jer­u­s­alem, there is a (very) grudging — respect is the wrong word, but it’ll have to do — for the per­ceived “suc­cess” of Israel’s Gaza media campaign.

So let’s unpick it a little. At the most fun­da­mental level, Israel bene­fits from a very simple mes­sage: whatever hap­pens in Gaza is simply the tra­gic but inev­it­able con­sequence of years of rocket attacks. Con­tinue read­ing

Frank Rich sees the future…

NYT colum­nist Frank Rich, who must lack a tiny bit of self-irony, takes aim at the ‘blovi­at­ors’ cov­er­ing the Obama cam­paign. But in the course of his mus­ings a little internet-inspired doubt creeps in. :

Journ­al­ists are still Amer­ic­ans — even if much of our audi­ence doubts that — and in this time of grave uncer­tainty about our nation’s future we may simply be as dis­com­bob­u­lated as every­one else.

We, too, are made anxious and fear­ful by hard eco­nomic times and the pro­spect of wrench­ing change. You­Tube, the medium that has trans­formed our cul­ture and polit­ics, didn’t exist four years ago. Con­tinue read­ing

Davos conversation

Oné of the most inter­est­ing media pro­jects run­ning at Davos 08 is the You­Tube Davos con­ver­sa­tion. The con­ver­sa­tion aims to get people on the out­side of the Forum con­nect­ing with people on the inside.

Par­ti­cipants will get to stand under “sound showers” (no need to get changed) and answer some of the ques­tions being raised. Things kick off Wed­nes­day, so let’s hope there are some answers being prepared.

One thing to make the world better in 2008

“What one thing do you think that coun­tries, com­pan­ies or indi­vidu­als must do to make the world a bet­ter place in 2008?” That is the ques­tion being asked on You­Tube by the organ­isers of the World Eco­nomic Forum. It’s called the Davos Ques­tion, after the name of the Swiss ski resort where Forum mem­bers meet every January.

You can put up an answer and they will be post­ing some of the responses here.

Yes, it is tempt­ing to say “replace big inter­na­tional meet­ings with video con­fer­ences,” but that will have to wait for when we’re vir­tual, not social beings.

And I’ll have to put cyn­icism aside because (dis­clos­ure) I’m head­ing to Davos next month.

Ask your­self this, though — when the WEF is soli­cit­ing your views to address the big ques­tions — why isn’t your government?