BLOGS VINDICATED. WILL BLOGGERS BE ACCREDITED AS NEW MEDIA?

On Tuesday 30 January 2007,I, previously blogging just as zorro, unmasked myself to seek credibility for what I had set out to do. I said in my maiden posting:

The final straw that broke the camel's back to finally kick-start this blog is of course the legal action of the bullies, hiding under a corporate perforated umbrellas, against two uncompromising and not-so-easily cowed master-bloggers. These plaintiffs know as much about journalism as a toad would know about baking a cheese cake. These have turned the mainstream dailies into house organs, and in-house sheets promoting the interests of their political masters, thus making them impotent as an independent news voice. Investigative journalism to unravel unbridled corruption, thriving unimpeded on Malaysian fertile environment is definitely anathema!

This maiden posting ask these questions:

Where is the power to think for oneself?

Where is the forum for diverse ideas?

What happens to the court of public opinion?

Along the way, questions were asked by concerned friends, relatives and family.when I told them I received an anonymous call that reminded me that there still existed a place called Kamunting. That was when I decided to stay the course. That was when I told the anon caller that Kamunting was in my hometown Taiping and a visit would be nostalgic to relive those unfetterd days I spent with Kamal, Zainal, Sunny, his brother Boy, my brother Mike, Chandra (Rat) and his pint-sized brother Kecil.

But above all I wrote on April 12, 2007 that this has to go on:

I am blessed with a current blogroll of Malaysia's alpha-bloggers, the real movers who themselves have amassed a blogroll of the most talented young turks who want to effect a paradigm shift on how they want this country to have a new vision and direction.

We have been led like zombies into believing semua-nya ok. We want to change the rules. This country needs a make-over. This country must be revived with a massive blood transfusion.

Then came along EVENTS that you cannot write about it you were not there....there was the March Of The Penguins (Lawyers walk for Justice); the Yellow Wave generated by BERSIH; the HINDRAF Rally that gave birth to that rallying cry: MAKKAL SAKTI that sounded the death-knell to the arrogant MIC; the Human Rights Sunday Stroll; the Candlelight Vigil to to plead for the release of the Hindraf 5; the Children's Offering of Roses to the PM (which he did not accept) and the final rally at KLCC to stall the increase in the price of gas. All were fraught with its particular dangers....searing tear gas, stinging water from chemically laced water canons and the dreaded arrests. It was no fun when someone behind you greets and asks: Hello Zorro, can I have your particulars?

Then you got to go down to ground-zero to ceremahs in Penang, Rembau, Wangsa Maju, TTDI, SS2, Subang Jaya, Section 5 & 17, Segambut, Kelana Jaya and Kelang....capture the sense of each ceremah and come back and blog about them to the internet community

Did all these matter? For me it did matter, because I just wanted to contribute. Was it worth it? It was because collectively the PEOPLE thought and willed as one. Did Blogging contribute? In its little way I think blogging helped UNTIL.........

,,,,,,observer-journalists like DEAN JOHNS and KEE TUAN CHYE wrote that bloggers made a difference:

DEAN said in Malaysiakini:

The Net Strikes:

As maddeningly slow as it can be at times to those of us impatient to see an end of a regime like BN, evolution sure beats revolution in the long haul. Revolutions, coups and other sudden, dramatic and drastic shifts of power have a way of replacing one unbearable tyranny with another that, after the initial popular euphoria has died down, turns out to be equally evil or even, if possible, worse.

Witness the dismal long-term effects of communist revolutions in Russia, China, Cuba and elsewhere; the atrocious results of armed power-grabs as in Soeharto’s Indonesia, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and the generals’ Burma; and the catastrophic consequences of theocratic take-overs in the Ayatollah’s Iran and the Taliban’s Afghanistan.

In the light of such cases as these, Malaysia is fortunate to have been spared the blood, tears, terrors and likely disappointments of revolution in favour of political evolution. Or, more specifically, e-volution. Because, as everyone must be aware by now, what’s made this election such a watershed is the power of the Internet.

BN thought it understood this, but the election results demonstrated that it had no idea what it was dealing with. Attempting to write-off bloggers as nothing but “nuisances”, “liars” and “unemployed women” was its first mistake, given that the bloggosphere boasted such political heavyweights as Lim Kit Siang and Anwar Ibrahim and a whole galaxy of increasingly heavy-hitters like Raja Petra Kamarudin, Rocky Attan, Jeff Ooi, Haris Ibrahim, Elizabeth Wong, Susan Loone, Bernard Khoo, K Temoc, Lulu and thousands of others as effective but too numerous to name here.

And unlike BN and its media minions, including a whole squadrons of ‘mainstream’ journalists-for-rent ranging from Kalimullah Hassan of the New Straits Times to Joceline Tan of Star, most of the bloggers systematically built their credibility by telling the truth, at least as they see or are able to ascertain it.

Kee Tuan Chye in his own inimitable way, says YES, bloggers are doing it right.

KEE averred: “The mainstream media needs to change now. It cannot be partisan any more. It must adapt to the new political landscape. Report the news as it is without editorialising. Support issues fairly. Regardless of which party champions them.

“The media cannot play the old game any more or it will end up like the BN dinosaurs. This is also the age of the Internet and SMS. People can’t be so easily fooled or sold on repackaged truth. Readers and viewers are now better informed and educated. They will abandon the mainstream media if it continues to be biased.

“Journalists must uphold the values and principles of their noble profession. They should be the watchdogs of society, not spindoctors or propagandists,” Kee concluded.

MY QUESTIONS:

Will Socio-Political Bloggers be accepted as the New Media?

Will we be accredited and accepted to cover media events?

JUST ASKING!

AND HOPING!