I’m not sure that “most” Moroccan bloggers have the guts to cross the redlines. I read Jillian’s estimate that there are 50,000 bloggers in the Moroccan blogosphere. But how many have been prosecuted for what they wrote? Less than 10? So either nearly everyone is getting away with it, or very few are crossing the redlines at all!

Redlines exist everywhere. For example, advocating terrorism or the death of public officials, revealing national secrets, slander and fraud would all get you in trouble in the U.S. Of course we can argue about what the redlines should be. In Morocco there are two problems, the lines are too narrow (scaring away open discussion), and the boundaries are unclear. I agree with you that the job of citizen journalists and online activists is to test the redlines (see my own post), and that’s a good thing.

On the other hand, it’s not only bloggers who have gotten in legal trouble for testing Morocco’s redlines. Hasn’t that happened to a number of professional journalists as well? So let’s give them some credit for taking risks to report the truth.

What I’m saying is that this can be a healthy competition between bloggers and professional journalists, in which journalists become more aggressive as “watchdogs” of public officials, and bloggers learn more of the professionals’ skills to improve their standards. Isn’t that a win-win?

In Morocco, many “individual voices” have been jailed simply because what they everyday post on their blogs constitue a serious threat to the regime. Why jailed? Because Citizen journalists have become a major source of news in Morocco. One reason is that most of them have the guts to trespass the redlines.

I know that journalists in the US and Europe have got no taboo subjects to avoid shedding light on. That’s why I think the comparison is a waste of time and ink.
Regards

No sir, that was Kris Kristofferson, made famous by Janis Joplin (“Me and Bobby McGee”). Just sayin’.

Professional journalists working for major media outlets have more to lose, so they are more cautious. They could lose access to sources, or professional credibility if they stray from “objective reporting” into mere personal opinion. Publishers and broadcasters can lose advertisers, or face lawsuits if they can’t back up what they say. By and large, individuals on the internet don’t have to worry about this, precisely because their individual voices are no real threat to anyone.

There are both good sides and bad sides to this. Clearly individual voices online can express points of view, or expose social problems that wouldn’t make it past the cautious self-censorship of the mainstream media (and I’m talking about the U.S. and Europe, not just the Arab world). On the other hand, these same individual voices may generalize inaccurately from personal experience, or mistake opinion for fact, or invent motives for actions they don’t understand based on no evidence outside their own imagination. As is well known, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet.

As a blogger myself, I tend to believe that internet chaos is mostly a good thing. At times, bloggers really do pierce the bubble of official media with facts on the ground that would otherwise go unnoticed. Professional journalists should welcome the competition, and learn to see it as a resource rather than a threat. However, at the same time their caution is justified. They need to ensure that what they report is objectively true, or at least that a range of subjective angles is presented. Bloggers aren’t bound by these standards, unless they impose them on themselves.

Hopefully both sides will benefit from this encounter. Professional journalists will “up their game” and become more responsive, and more aggressive in following leads. Meanwhile, the best bloggers will develop an authority of their own, based on a reputation for researching their claims and presenting fact as fact, analysis as analysis, as journalists are supposed to do. So out of the internet anarchy will come something of beauty, a friendly competition between “insiders” and “outsiders” to get at the truth.

This process, as I said, could apply to any country. It’s what I observe happening in the U.S., in the rapid evolution of the blogosphere over the past decade. I see no reason why it couldn’t happen in Morocco as well, although the day is still young.

As for the US, even Chomsky acknowledges that the country is, without a doubt, the most committed to freedom of expression in the world. Coming from a Russian, the comparison is asinine and an insult to the reader’s intelligence.

I will not comment on power in Arab countries, it will take months. But one good sign is journalism. Its level is a vision of one country. According Noam Chomsky U.S. media even serve to government. What is the solution then? We can rely only on personal qualities and morals of journalists.

Do you think professional journalists have role to play in the future? I mean we can argue about the independence of such and such outlet but the work of professional journalists will still be valuable and commendable even if they are no longer exclusive in harnessing information and despite the ever reordering media landscape.