Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Watching a Revolution in Real Time

If there were a Pulitzer Prize for blogging, it should be rewarded to Andrew Sullivan for his coverage of the Iranian uprising. The government of Iran has blocked most broadcasts in the country, but the regular person on the street are using cell phones and digital cameras to film the carnage. They are using Twitter to communicate with the world. Sullivan has been tirelessly compiling coverage, as well as collecting a variety of opinions in the US. I doubt he's getting much sleep. I've been glued to my monitor since Saturday. The internet as a medium has reached a new level. I've watched a bit of television news and it's just not enough information.

He makes a great point today, above a youtube clip of gunfire in the streets:

They're shooting directly at civilians, but the civilians are undeterred. Have we ever been able to watch a revolution like this in real time? Has any mainstream media ever been able to broadcast scenes like this? Now that everyone is a broadcaster, revolutions will always be televised (or, broadcast anyway, since much of cable news is uninterested):
Check out his website at the Atlantic.

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