typhoon "ondoy" (re)told through social media

26 September 2009. The day will go down in history as the day the skies opened and released the most rainfall in a single day that the nation had seen since 1967 -- 455 millimeters, as compared to 344 millimeters on 7 June of that year. That's more than what "Katrina" dumped on Louisiana a few years ago, according to this story. In fact, as much rain fell in just six hours as in a month.

It wasn't so much that it rained hard as that it rained continuously. And with this record rainfall came the worst flood the nation had ever experienced. Even at storm signal #1, which was what PAGASA said it was, Metro Manila streets were flooded in no time. One can only guess what the final estimates of damage to life, property, and infrastructure will be.

Nobody saw it coming. Nobody could have.

mobile technology + social networking

Many Metro Manila residents, unmindful that "the great flood" was coming, went about their usual business. Some remained unmindful as it was happening and were alerted later on.

It was only through their trusty mobile phones that most who were stranded sent SOS's to tell loved ones and friends of their situation. Cristine Reyes, for example, stranded on the roof of their Provident Village, Marikina home, was interviewed on TV via mobile phone patch.

By Saturday afternoon, my sister's Facebook account was showing a number of photos and videos of flooded areas -- most shot with mobile phones from windows of tall buildings. They were forwarded by friends who also received them on Facebook or on their mobile phones, or found on YouTube.

Later in the day, calls for help circulated via SMS -- a friend whose husband and young children were stranded on a flooded street, a family stuck on the roof of their house, among others.

= communicating in emergency situations

Communicating in emergency situations has come a long way since the days when one had to go to a radio or TV station to air a panawagan (roughly, a public service request or call for attention). In the rural areas, radio or TV may still rule -- but there, as in Metro Manila, the mobile phone is ubiquitous.

Add to this the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, and you have probably the best way to exchange information and communication, especially among Metro Manila residents.

This doesn't necessarily spell the end for traditional mass media, but with more and more people relying on SMS and social networking sites, we should certainly think about harnessing these media to benefit all.

After this experience, I wonder: If weather/flood alerts or such notices from PAGASA and other government agencies were to be disseminated via SMS or Facebook, would they reach more people faster?

Would we be more prepared for a situation like this?

Perhaps only while mobile phone batteries and Internet connections last.

notes after a workshop in banaue

The other week, my colleague and I gave a workshop in Banaue, Ifugao Province.

I guided the participants through the basics of news writing while my colleague talked about design and layout-related matters.

It was our first workshop in Banaue -- and I must say, our first at a resort, the Banaue Ethnic Village Inn. The participants, however, were students from the four high schools of Asipulo. Also for the first time, we had older participants as well: the students' advisers, and the editorial staff of the LGU of Asipulo.

Aside from the change in location and environment, it was much like the previous workshops. The participants were there because they wanted to be able to write for and produce their newsletters.

But because it was a mixed group, we had a wider range of questions.

Some of the teachers and LGU staff showed much interest in the practical side of newsletter production -- offset printing and photocopying, for example. An LGU staff wanted to know if identifying people "left to right" in photo captions meant the viewers' left to right. A teacher asked me if the basics of news writing could be applied to the Filipino language, and if their newsletter could be in more than one language.

In all, it was interesting to have this surge of interest in producing school -- and for that matter, LGU -- newsletters. Our LGU contact, in particular, expressed concern that the absence of a newsletter among the community translated to their lack of awareness of ongoing community projects. Did the community members know, for example, that their LGU had bested all the other LGUs in the country to win an award for a community project?

All this should tell us that no matter how small the circulation or how few the pages, a newsletter has very real use -- especially in a remote town like Asipulo. With some areas yet to be electrified, and radio broadcasts and cellphone signals hard to come by, people have to rely on -- and even produce -- their own print media to keep the information flowing.

+++

There's more I'd like to say about this workshop: how inspiring it was to interact with the students and teachers, how gracious the owners and staff of the resort all were, how cold and crisp the air was in this part of Banaue, how verdant the mountains and trees were, how fresh the vegetables tasted, how special it felt to be served lemons when I had asked for calamansi. 

But my colleague has already blogged about all this. For a much better story, see her blog here. Anything I write after her account is, to be honest, a bit anticlimactic.

burmese blogger sentenced

It was a first for the Burmese blogosphere: on November 10, the military junta sentenced a blogger, Nay Phone Latt.

According to a report by Mizzima, the blogger, who was arrested earlier this year, was sentenced to more than 20 years. The bulk of this sentence was for violating the Electronics Act.

The 2007 Annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index of Reportiers sans frontieres (Reporters without Borders) ranked Burma 164th out of 168 countries for both 2006 and 2007.

Also notable in the 2007 index is the observation of "serious, repeated violations of the free flow of online news and information." RSF says that 64 people around the world have been sentenced for something they have posted on the Internet.

In Burma, though the number of blogs is still very limited -- perhaps only 200, by one Burmese national's estimate -- outside the country, there are more.

With the junta monitoring and restricting Internet usage in Burma, it is a wonder that bloggers like Nay Phone Latt are even able to maintain a blog. An Internet Law has been in place in the country from as early as 2000.

According to Burmese nationals, the government server bans even free email sites like Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail.

Click here for the full story on Nay Phone Latt.

reflections after a workshop

We recently had a news writing workshop with the members of the Providential Youngsters Society (PrYS)-Kiangan in Ifugao.

The young people of Kiangan, I discovered, are a lot more media-savvy than their counterparts from Asipulo -- a municipality where some barangays are not accessible except on foot and have no electricity.

Some participants attended the workshop with earphones glued to their ears.

After the workshop, some participants asked us if we had Friendster accounts.

How does their exposure to media affect them? How do they use it? Do they use it to their advantage? For research? For entertainment?

Do they feel empowered to use it to tell the world about their community? Or do they use it to get out of it?

If they could only feel empowered, think how much richer the national and even global dialogue would be. Citizen journalism is this dialogue, proof of empowerment, an alternative to the established media.

In the end, I believe that these young people can contribute. This is why we do these workshops: to help them contribute. A newsletter isn't just a newsletter -- it's citizen journalism.

Perhaps my hoping they'd be citizen journalists someday is too ambitious, but there are stories only they can write. There is knowledge only they can share. And there is a future only they can create.

----------------------

This photo shows PrYS organizer Gerald Puguon, Jr. accepting a book donation on behalf of PrYS. The books were given by the Konrad Adenauer Asian Center for Journalism (ACFJ) at the Ateneo de Manila University to support PrYS's efforts to publish a newsletter.

the media's choices in the coverage of the virginia tech shooting

In times of crisis and tragedy, the challenge to media organizations remains the same: aside from adhering to the basic tenets of journalism, reporters and decision makers must exercise greater sensitivity and responsibility in their reportage.

The Virginia Tech shooting last Monday was certainly no exception.

But if in the past, the challenge would mostly revolve around getting a reporter or crew to the scene and transmitting footage as quickly as possible, the shooting presented challenges we would not have even had to consider in previous years.

unique challenges
For one, citizen journalism played a large part in how the shooting was reported. CNN's now familiar footage of the incident taken from a cellphone camera was courtesy of Virginia Tech undergrad Jamal Albarghouti. While a bit shaky and below broadcast quality, the footage put CNN's viewers on the scene. The message: Albarghouti was there. Not a single reporter or cameraman from a mainstream media organization was.

But there's more. On Wednesday, NBC received a package containing materials from the gunman, Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui, portions of which they aired on NBC Nightly News. A video showed Cho ranting, while photos showed him in various "Rambo"-like poses, pointing a gun at the camera.

media response
Citizen journalism draws mixed reactions from professional journalists. Armed only with digital cameras and mobile phones, citizen journalists might find themselves in the same kind of danger more experienced ones might be more prepared for. Does this make them heroes? Without them, what would we know, see, or hear of the Virginia Tech shooting?

Albarghouti was the world's eyes and ears in those moments. He documented those moments as he perhaps thought a good citizen -- any citizen -- should do. And he turned in his footage online via CNN's I-Reports. It was his choice to make -- one for which he reportedly got paid, after CNN used his footage on the air.

The case is the same with the NBC footage. It was a choice. Though Steve Capus, president of NBC News, assures us that the decision to air photographs and parts of the video was "not taken lightly," is it one we will remember if a similar incident takes place in the future? Remember that Cho's model was Columbine. Besides being disturbing and graphic, could the images -- and the fact that they've been aired countless times -- turn Cho into a misunderstood underdog kind of hero in some way?

Sure, the airing of Cho's material might allow us some insight that may aid in identifying future gunmen, but would it help us prevent such carnage in the future? What are the effects on viewers -- on one hand, the families of the victims, the survivors; and on the other, children, extremists, the mentally and emotionally disturbed?

It may be a long shot, but NBC's airing of Cho's material can be compared to giving in to a hostage taker's demands. It is an attention-getting device, a call for attention. Nowhere among Cho's material can an apology be found; no mea culpa, no confession, no remorse. Instead we find reasons -- a man justifying his actions by hate, anger, and the need to act out his aggression. It is distressing and painful to watch.

we, the audience
All of this brings us back to the audience. What does this kind of coverage say about the audience? Are we starved for speed and scoops? Why did Albarghouti's footage sell? Would we make the same decision he made?

There are more questions, none of them easy: Is it all just part of the mad scramble for ratings? Do we really, truly want to watch the rantings of a killer and know why on God's earth he conceived of and carried out such an act? Do we really want to get inside the minds of such criminals? What kind of coverage do we really want?

In times of crisis and tragedy, what do the media think we, the audience, want? Judging by their response to the Virginia Tech shooting, it is clear: we all had to be there at that moment, and we all had to be the gunman too.

blogging gone global

In case the power of blogging hasn’t sunk in yet, or if you’re one of those in denial, check out Global Voices Online.

Here are some excerpts from a case study I did:

Global Voices Online (www.globalvoicesonline.org) is a “citizens’ media” project (Global Voices Online, 2006) that networks bloggers from some 160 countries around the world. Existing purely online, it makes use of a blog and other Internet technologies to enable interaction and discussion among bloggers. Most of the bloggers are from or in countries underreported by mainstream media -- i.e. countries outside North America and parts of Europe.

The project took off from a meeting of bloggers entitled “Global Voices Online: Blogging for Independent Journalists, Concerned Citizens, and Activists,” which was part of a conference called “Internet and Society 2004: Votes, Bits, and Bytes,” held in December 2004 and sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. The meeting was organized by technologist Dr. Ethan Zuckerman and former CNN correspondent Rebecca MacKinnon, both research fellows at the Berkman Center.

A manifesto states the project’s core beliefs and values -- the commitment to free speech, and aims to use the power of citizens’ media in addressing the needs of people and societies marginalized or even disenfranchised by mainstream media. (Global Voices Manifesto, 2005) The Global Voices “About” page lists the following goals:

1. to call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world by linking to text, audio, and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens’ media being produced by people around the world;


2. to facilitate the emergence of new citizens’ voices through training, online tutorials, and publicizing the ways in which open-source and free tools can be used safely by people around the world to express themselves; and


3. to advocate for freedom of expression around the world and to protect the rights of citizen journalists to report on events and opinions without fear of censorship or persecution.

With the estimated one million visitors the site receives monthly, many of them reporters and editors from the mainstream media, Global Voices has truly created a global blogging community. Aside from this, it has helped call attention to the parts of the world that have been underreported or marginazlied in traditional/mainstream media.

virtually free

Recently, I was chatting with a Burmese journalist in exile who works with an online Burmese news site and monitors the country’s blogosphere. A study he did just last week revealed that there are not more than 200 Burmese bloggers. Of these, only about 10 admitted to blogging from Burma. Of all Burmese blogs, less than 10 percent have political content.

According to him, the junta does not censor the blogs of those from outside Burma. Still, all bloggers -- political and otherwise -- hide their identities and take great care to go under the radar, so to speak. Censorship of the Internet in Burma is strictly and successfully accomplished, so much so that Reporters sans frontieres has included Burma in its list of 13 “enemies of the Internet” and has declared its Internet policies to be “even more repressive” than those of China and Vietnam.

Perhaps Internet restrictions have resulted in the small number of Burmese bloggers. But blogging does not necessarily indicate a free press. Take China as an example. Despite its estimated 17 million bloggers (and more than 10,000 newspapers and magazines, and 600 radio and TV stations), control of the media is still strong. Web and blog sites are either blocked or forced to shut down.

Imprisonment is another form of censure. In Burma and China, as in other countries with limited freedom of the press, any journalist working in any medium can be thrown in prison. But bloggers can be seen as a bigger threat because they work in a medium with the fastest publishing time and the widest reach. RSF maintains a list those journalists and other individuals who have been imprisoned for their Internet activities, including blogging -- 59 at last count, 50 of whom are Chinese. Some of them have been in jail since 1999.

In places where the traditional media are not free, blogging is journalism. But until bloggers can successfully evade a clampdown, they are only virtually free.

in the line of duty

This is just a postscript to my earlier entry.

In the Philippines -- despite being a democracy, named by the Committee to Protect Journalists as “one of the most dangerous datelines” in 2006, second only to Iraq -- anyone might cover the conflict in Mindanao, the stampede in Quezon City, the elections in May.

But it is still the traditional or “professional” journalist receiving death threats or getting killed in the line of duty.

Of course there can be many factors behind this. I was just thinking, though, that perhaps the local blogs are not yet considered as much of a “threat” as the mainstream press.

news for all, by all

Perhaps the most common argument I’ve heard against citizen journalism is in reaction to the idea that anyone can be a journalist. When you have studied and trained for years to be one, slaved as a cub reporter, covered beats, conducted interviews, and risked your life as a journalist, being told that your work can be done by anyone with a cellphone, a computer, no experience, and no training, takes some time getting used to.

Nevertheless, citizen journalism is important because it empowers the people. As Dan Gillmor writes in his book,We the Media, “Once mere consumers of news, the audience… is learning how to join the process of journalism.” Journalism has always aimed to be a forum for public discourse. Citizen journalism is proof that the public is aware and engaged. It tells us that the public wants to participate in and contribute to journalism’s watchdog role. Whether this speaks of a distrust of the press is another story.

I agree with Mark Glaser’s observation in MediaShift, that “mainstream media reporters and producers are not the exclusive center of knowledge on a subject.” Traditional journalists are not supposed to know all the answers, but acting with the public’s interest in mind, are supposed to ask the questions the audience would want to ask. Citizen journalism is the public exercising its right and its ability to ask their own questions and to document the world as they see and understand it.

Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel wrote in The Elements of Journalism: “People have an intrinsic need -- an instinct -- to know what is occurring beyond their direct experience.” Citizen journalists are born from this instinct, just as traditional journalists are. And if traditional journalists have done their job well, citizen journalists will share and exhibit the same news values. Good journalism, by whatever name and through whatever medium, should always aim for the truth.