Danger of Blogging
This blog is a response to one by Francis Reilly on the number of online journalists imprisoned around the world.
It surprised me to learn that it is journalists that are online are in the most danger of being imprisoned for their craft. This RTÉ article however shows that clearly bloggers are the most in danger of being silenced.
I would’ve assumed that governments throughout the world care less about online journalists than their print equivalents. Although it’s obvious that amateur bloggers do not have an organisation around them to protect them from persecution.
A similar issue is that of bloggers putting themselves in more direct physical danger. David Kearns also blogged on this issue, discussing how everyday people are usually the first on the scene of a dangerous news story and many of the pictures we get come from these people. But of course there are inherent dangers to this, a soldier for example I assume would hold fire quicker on a person with a “press” shirt on than a member of the public.
It is definately an issue that must be tackled as bloggers could endanger themselves even further by pushing boundaries that a news organisation would not.
