Day Two of the We Media Global Conference

So here we are at the gorgeous new Reuters building in Canary Wharf. It's a world away from the BBC building in West London - and not just physically. The BBC seemed stodgy, adversarial toward bloggers and defensive. They seemed desperately anxious to be dynamic, modern and cutting edge, but painfully aware that something stops them from being so. They just couldn't figure out what it was. My impression was that they understand bloggers can't be ignored, but are more interested in undermining them with a smug, "we have the monopoly on the truth and we are professionals and you're not" attitude than seeking ways of cooperating with and learning from them.

On the other hand, Reuters feels self confident and very dynamic. They seem far less afraid of changes in how the news is reported than the BBC - in fact, they seem quite open to the idea of a mutually cooperative relationship (this is just my initial observation/feeling; it might change over the course of the day).

The fact that the BBC is government-funded and Reuters is a profit-oriented business forces me once again to face my ambivalence about capitalism versus (moderate, Scandinavian style) socialism. (more on that later, perhaps - again, it's difficult to formulate and articulate my thoughts while people are talking all around me).

Interesting story about Reuters, which considers itself very objective: a lot of Israelis jokingly refer to it as "Al Reuters" (a play on Al Jazeera, which many Israelis think is hopelessly biased against "the Zionist entity"). On the other hand, I've heard Palestinian Reuters reporters complain that they were prevented by their editors from writing about the bereaved parents of suicide bombers in a way that showed the parents did not celebrate their child's death, did not support suicide bombings and did not think their dead child was a shaheed (martyr) who was on his way to paradise.

What freaked me out a bit was that the Palestinian Reuters reporters who complained about being censored by their editors, insisted that some vaguely defined "Jewish lobby" in the USA had put pressure on Reuters to prevent them from "humanising" the suicide bombers. I just found that hard to believe, and of course the term "Jewish lobby" reeks of conspiracy theory. Unfortunately the Middle Eastern attitude toward conspiracy theories, even amongst intelligent, educated people, is too often a variation on "just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean there's nobody out to get me."

But my point is, Reuters is seen as lacking objectivity by both Palestinians and Israelis. On the other hand, Palestinian and Israeli Reuters reporters work together, in the same office in Jerusalem, sometimes covering the same stories.

We GVO people (Rebecca, Salam, Eduardo, Neha, Rachel and me) left the first day of the conference feeling rather frustrated. (we drowned our irritation in a fabulous Indian meal accompanied by Cobra beer, plus excellent, stimulating conversation).

Here's the thing: On the one hand I don't want to "dis"  the Beeb because they did a nice job of hosting the conference yesterday and it's not nice to insult one's hosts. On the other hand, let's face it - the BBC has some non-altruistic reasons for hosting the conference. So I'm just gonna say it as I see it - with classic Israeli straightforwardness, tempered by the remaining shards of my Canadian politeness and reticence.

The big issue here, the one that everyone's dancing around, is this: the MSM have recognised blogging for the phenomenon that it is and they want to figure out a way to harness it in order to make money.

The thing is, bloggers aren't in it for the money - at least, the vast majority are not. (I know of only a few exceptions).

A few months ago, Yael and I spoke about the blogging phenomenon to the faculty of communications at Ben Gurion University. After we'd given our spiel about how blogging was building communities and bridges, spreading information, providing nuance, correcting half-assed mainstream media reporting and so on, Ben Caspit came over to me and said, "I just don't get it."

"What don't you get?" I asked.

"I don't understand why anybody would invest time and effort in writing a blog for no money! Why do you do it?"

I posted about the talk given by Tom Glocer, the CEO of Reuters at this morning's opening session,  because I had to uphold part of the deal: We Media paid for me to attend this conference, and in exchange I wrote about part of it on the conference blog. But I'm really glad I had to listen to Tom's speech closely, because he had something important to say: the fact is that people in western democracies are voting in declining numbers, but on the other hand they do not trust the media (this according to a BBC poll done before the conference). It seems that the percentage of voters is declining because citizens do not feel that their vote translates into a voice. And perhaps blogging is a way of making one's voice heard - of forcing the politicians to hear.

My question is, are they listening? And what does it say about the state of democracy in the western world if citizens are simultaneously mistrustful of the democratic process and skeptical about the willingness/ability of the media to provide truthful, in-depth and thoughtful reporting?

And bloggers, why do you blog?

Readers: your thoughts, please!