Friday, October 17, 2003

Palestinians Find Their Voice Online
Palestinian Internet users have had many choices when it came to staying up with the conflict with Israel on Arab-language news sites. Now there are a growing number of English-language sites that emphasize the Palestinian position, and are carrying that position to a far wider audience.

Online-only news sites such as the Palestine Chronicle and Palestine Monitor provide eyewitness accounts to flare-ups throughout the region. And these news sites give mainly volunteer contributors space for their photos and diaries of events as they unfold. Then there are news portals such as Electronic Intifada that provide even more depth by pointing to a variety of sources online -- combining original commentaries and news with views from other outlets.

Ali Abunimah is a co-founder of Electronic Intifada and vice president of the Arab-American Action Network. He e-mailed me about the genesis of the EI site. "EI was the culmination of several years experience of using the Internet as a means of disseminating supplementary and alternative news," he said. "We felt that a professionally produced, attractive, independent and edgy news site would greatly increase the opportunities for Palestinians to be heard. Our 'Live from Palestine' diaries provided a direct window into what was happening to Palestinians at the time of the March-April, 2002, Israeli Operation Defensive Shield."

EI does much more than report on the situation in the territories and round up news. The site includes a special section for journalists, including media resources, an e-mail list and journalists' rights organizations. EI also does media criticism -- a growing part of independent Palestinian sites -- pointing to mainstream news stories that might not be balanced in their view. "I am very proud of our section on the role of the media, and our Coverage Trends, which analyze critically mainstream coverage of the issue," Abunimah said. "I think that trying to provide such accountability is a fundamental role of our site."

Palestine Monitor includes a section called Media Watch, while the Palestine Media Watch (PMWatch) site constantly monitors U.S. media coverage of Palestinian issues. PMWatch, an all-volunteer site with 39 "local chapters" in the U.S., issues alerts with explicit instructions on how to lobby the White House and Congress, and send letters to editors.

Why online?

The Web provides a cheap way to get more perspectives heard, stay in touch across many borders -- Palestinians live around the world -- and organize for activism. However, dependence on the Net also leaves them vulnerable to hackers, spammers and other cyber-attackers.

"The Internet is important because it enables people on the ground to relay directly and unfiltered, and in real time, what is taking place on the ground," said Ahmed Bouzid, an Algerian activist writer and software developer in Philadelphia who founded PMWatch. "It is almost impossible, for instance, to establish an organization such as PMWatch, built on volunteers doing media monitoring and relaying their findings and organizing action, without the Internet."

While many of the more activist sites are aimed at an international audience by providing news and views in English, the basic nitty-gritty local news of the Palestinian territories remains in Arabic from newspapers such as Al-Quds.…

http://www.ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1066177054.php

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