There's something afoot in Kyrgyzstan. The reports are that the Prime Minister has stepped down, the President is hiding on the US base (a base he kept threatening to close), and there are mobs of protesters in the streets.
I remember when the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc fell the coverage was spotty. We were treated to live shots of the goings on at the Berlin Wall, but Moscow was a mystery. It took some time for the news and video to escape and come back to us. Oh, they had live shots, but they always seemed to be of a skyline or a row of windows. Nothing happened. The only narrative was a news anchor like Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw or Dan Rather speculating along with the men in the control room. Sometimes they didn't even know exactly what the camera was showing.
That's one of the coolest things about now. Everyone can be a journalist. I could wander into a local news event with my Flip Video camera and share video minutes after anything. The Foreign Policy blog (which is a great read) has
several videos of the protests here. I know it's well established that news travels fast these days, but what's more interesting is what is gained and lost. I feel much closer to this story having been able to watch video. I get a sense of the emotions involved, the odd mixture of joy and frustration and restlessness emanating from the video. At the same time I still feel a strong need to
read about the situation in the New York Times because I feel adrift.
So the news is now more democratic. I'm closer to the action, can pick viable sources to get well rounded on the story, and feel smarter. However, I worry too because how many people are expending the energy to do so? Television news has descended into a weird mixture of gossip, talking (and yelling) heads, opinion, infotainment, and personalities. The anchor as the voice of God seems to have gone away. There isn't an attempt to cover a story like this live, even with 24 hours to fill. I applaud the new way while lamenting the masses getting their fill of missing children, highway chases, and celebrity sex tapes.
