Friday, February 20, and the big news today is election day in Iran.
CNN disagrees. CNN thinks today’s top
news is Schwarzenegger’s opinion of gay marriage. Further down the
front page, but still well above Iran–a piranha was found in the
Thames. Bzzzt! Sorry, CNN, but thank you for playing.
Many liberal voters are staying away from the polls to protest–so
the ultra-conservative minority expects to win by a landslide.
Some liberal leaders argue that refusing to vote is political suicide.
Others hope to undermine the legitimacy of a conservative takeover by
publicizing their boycott. Iran TV stations, who know what’s good for
them, are broadcasting
photos of long peaceful lines of voters. Out of the picture–boycotts,
protests, moderate candidates shut out of the process, opposition
newspapers shut down.
The excellent group blog
iranFilter is publishing live and realtime eyewitness election reports from Persian blogs.
Bloggers are publishing photos of empty streets and idle polling
places. Bloggers are asking why the TV film of “voters” shows people
dressed for a warm summer day instead of the actual chilly
weather today. (Not coincidentally, iranFilter is Feedster Feed of the Day today.)
News media don’t want to cover this story for us, but bloggers do.
1 response so far ↓
1 Zoe // Feb 21, 2004 at 1:49 pm
Although I don’t give a toss what Arnold Schwarzenegger’s personal opinion of gay marriage is, I am captivated by the struggle that gay people in America are going through at the moment to have their full rights as citizens recognized. I am excited and encouraged by what’s happening in California and Massachussets, and although the mainstream media has picked it up, I think bloggers need to pay attention to it just as much as the election in Iran.
I’ve often gotten the impression that bloggers like to cover things that aren’t mentioned in the mainstream media, although IMHO the blogger voice is as (if not more) important in combating skewed or distorted “top stories” that are reported through CNN and other news media. People should have access to not only all the stories, but hopefully a pleurality of views of every story.