Burma and the bloggers

Excellent coverage over at News Online and Global Voices of the role that blogs are playing in the reporting of the "Saffron Revolution" in Burma. News Online also lists some of the emails and audio sent in to the BBC

Blogs, mobile phones and and social networking sites are proving invaluable in getting information out of the country. If you've watched TV today you've probably seen video's like this, shot by ordinary Burmese:

News Agency AFP also recognises the power of the blogs, and citizen journalists in a features piece on how news is getting out:
When Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi stepped outside her home in Yangon to greet marching monks and supporters on Saturday, the only pictures of the landmark moment were posted on blogs. Mizzima News, an India-based news group run by exiled dissidents, picked up one of the photos of Aung San Suu Kyi and said more than 50,000 people accessed their website that day.
We spoke to the Soe Myint of Mizzima News on Drive. He told us that he fully expected the authorities to turn of net access in an effort to clamp down on communications. But even this may not completely silence the steady flow of information out of the country.

Citizen Journalists in Burma have demonstrated that the exclusion of professional reporters no longer cuts of the flow of news, (though it does guarantee that much of it is produced by people unsympathetic to the administration.)

The wealth of content is quite a change from a few years ago, when, in the wake of the Tsunami we wondered what was happening in Burma, but information was very, very hard to come by. The current situation could not be more different. Here for example is an edited version of an email I was forwarded today outlining how the BBC's User Generated Content hub is making use of web based content from Burma:

• By recording a short eye witness report on their mobile phone and then emailing us the MP3 file. This is an alternative to trying to get people on the phones - as all phone lines appear to be down.
• A number of Facebook groups have also been set up, where people are trying to share information. They are helping us by encouraging people to send the BBC any content they have
• We have also been speaking to people who have been uploading Youtube videos

Again this is quite a cultural change. When news breaks Blogs, Social Networks and Video Sharing sites are going to become must-check sites for journalists.If you want to take a look yourself here are some links from Saffron Revolution's blog-roll:

Sone sea yar, Pyithu-t'oo hmat-dan, Seinkhalote, Mogok Media, Ko Htike , Myanmar Media Ed & Devt Watch , Niknayman,

Also worth looking at the many Facebook groups covering Burma

UPDATE. The Associated Press reports that much of the net access has been shut down, "Service providers BaganNet and Myanmar Post and Telecom were shut down Friday, although big companies and embassies hooked up to the Web by satellite remained online." They quote Reporters Without Borders as saying the flow of information from Burma had "flowed to a trickle"

UPDATE II I believe the video above was filmed by a student traveling through Burma according to CNN Also worth reading this interesting piece on the Wall Street Journal

UPDATE III Our good friend Clark Boyd of WGBH/The World has produced an excellent radio feature on the protests and blogging