Indian blogs and MSM

Since they didn't find Bush or bin Laden newsworthy enough to put on their year-end cover, Time magazine decided to name "You" the person of the year. 'You' is anyone using Web 2.0 technologies – web platforms that allow for ordinary individuals to be both creators and consumers of media, thus empowering anyone and everyone. The Indian media jumped on this bandwagon, including 'You' in a number of its own year-end lists. This could have been an opportunity to look into issues such as the digital divide, Jurassic-era e-governance in the time of Web 2.0, or even what Web 3.0 would entail. But the overarching concern in the mainstream papers and online was that 'bloggers can write anything they want without fear of law'. Reminders were also ubiquitous of cases such as that of the social networking site Orkut, which has been getting in trouble in India this winter for its 'Dawood Ibrahim fan club'.

Such coverage of new, web-based media, especially on the part of Indian television channels, perhaps came from the experience of having been at the receiving end of unflattering if not sometimes slanderous comments on a blog called 'War for News'. This blog (from web log) is almost dead now, as the journalist who runs it is rumoured to have been found out and threatened. 'War for News' would pronounce regular judgements on the coverage of events on TV news and make comments about the capabilities of a reporter or the pronunciation of an anchor that were not taken kindly. What was worse, the blog would refuse to censor objectionable anonymous comments on its posts that often had to do with who was sleeping with whom. The blog claimed to be committed to free speech, but it left a bad taste in the mouth of those at the receiving end of its attentions.