Freelance

The age of magnificent news firms and the realm of heavy, solemn presses is seemingly over. The symptom that is most frequently referred to when considering the decay of journalism is the unselected avalanche of free news that is available to everyone. Newspaper companies cannot anymore monopolize the sources of news or determine what the audience should be interested in. During the history of journalism (up until now), the daily newspaper served its purpose: deliver a certain amount of selected news and reports from around the world to everyone willing to pay for it. Today, the channels of streaming news are free and open due to blogs, free online broadcasts, homepages of freelance journalists and so on.

Still, news articles covering certain topics are much easier to compile in newspapers. Similarly, some other types of news will appear to be more efficient in published by bloggers. According to my experience, there is still a wide gap between blogs and the articles of professional journalists. The most outstanding difference would be the stamp of personality in the articles of web logs and the common third-person style formality of professional journalists. A piece of news the reader can relate to personally will convey its message more effectively than a formal article in any traditional newspaper. Blogs gain audience by featuring a personal style and delivering certain types of news within a narrowed topic: such is the case of travel blogs, par example.

Considering the relationship between blogs/freelance news forums and traditional news firms, blogs will not necessarily replace the traditional news format in its entirety. Instead, blogs simply satisfy the needs of an audience that seek a more “natural” means of acquiring news. A blog revokes the scene of somebody kindly and enthusiastically telling somebody about what happened lately. Such form of telling news may even resemble gossiping, but a blogger also has to maintain her creditability. But who said gossiping was an anomaly of communication? Gossips are stories, no matter how private; they are the stories we talk about and the stories we can’t live without.

Blaming bloggers for their personal style manipulating or even distorting news is somewhat one-sided, especially considering the subtle ways a traditional article is able to do the same with a short, 1-column-long, boring little article by “carefully trimming” even the tiniest bits off in order to fit the blank space on the paper. A blogger at least allows free and direct channels for feedback. Moreover, considering reader’s response, for many readers, an uncensored and constantly refreshed comment page is more reassuring than a carefully selected compilation of letters to the editor that appears in a meticulously separated section of a newspaper.

Outdated Tyranny

The Great Firewall of China has struck again, but a bit late this time. Zhang Hong, the chief editor heading one of China’s most important and widespread daily papers, was fired after his article dared to criticize the highly suffocating bureaucracy in China’s legislative customs. One of the main concerns of Zhang’s article turned out to be the one reporting on the Chinese registration system that today ties the population to its original birth town and thus hinders the free flow of citizens migrating around the country. The only problem the Chinese government commando made this time was not preventing this snippet of news reaching some of the major news outlets in Europe and the US. The scandal erupted.

As it is obvious, people from the countryside are the most endangered segment of the current Chinese population, since in order to pursue a financially successful (= not starving to death) life, many of them are lured to the larger metropolises, such as Beijing. However, due to the good old registration system in China, many of the citizen’s rights are only available (!) in their birth town. Such reference to some vague “right of birth” is not as new as it might seem. The notion of "divide et impera", as the great Romans would recite all over the basin of the Mediterranean Sea two thousand years ago, is becoming ever more timely in China. This large country cannot actually afford the larger mega-cities and cannot compensate the economic loss that origins from a shrinking agriculture of the countryside. But the main problem is not about economics. The main problem is about preventing huge masses of people to hear about valuable information that is relevant to their lives; not letting them be near the news outlets and to experience the cracking and popping of the cultural melting pot of the city. The main problem is about preventing people to gather; since if there is a smaller gathering, there surely will be a larger one, and after that: an entire anti-governmental revolutionary party might form itself right there on the street.

The recent Google-scandal that involved Chinese hackers having a little fun with the Great Western Search Engine shed light on the strict Internet censorship in a country which, by the way, fed itself on its own self-esteem one and a half year ago when hosting the Summer Olympics in 2008. Back then, China showed the world what it has got. Zhang’s paper criticized the government, and a few hours later, Zhang was already dismissed. His former colleagues were too terrified to acknowledge the utter nonsense of such governmental repercussions.

What could still intrigue any readers of those few news outlets that could actually snatch the info covering Chinese registration issues is why such an overt punishment, arriving from a centralized government, can still nourish from people’s fear. Of course it can, but until when? Wouldn’t it be a more rewarding strategy to just simply pat Zhang on the back for his effort and make sure he disappears in a few years time, discreetly and quietly? Chinese tyrannical censorship and fake bureaucracy have been outdated to such an extent it could surprise anyone. Well, anyone who does not need to calculate with the everyday fight for survival in the Chinese idyll of living outside a “protecting” city. Still, China’s governmental behavior, especially if we consider this behavior as a strange but potentially dangerous phenomenon that is (most importantly) monitored by the entire West, is something that needs to be put into museums. Under thick glass.