Tuesday 17 May 2011

Meeting tonight

Blog Standard meets again tonight May 17 at room 6b, floor 3 of the Peter Froggatt Centre.

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Late notice

Blog Standard is meeting on April 12 at 7.00 in the Peter Froggatt Centre.
Our guest speaker is Alan Murray of Holy Lands War Zone, nothing to do with the Middle East.

Monday 28 March 2011

Next Meeting

Blog Standard will meet on Tuesday Mar 29 at 7.pm, Floor 3, room 6b Peter Froggatt Centre.
Everybody welcome.

This week's theme is social media networking.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Blogging Benghazi from a Bedroom in Belfast

On Saturday night, Feb 19, I got a Facebook message from a writer friend offering me the phone number of an activist in Benghazi who was witness to the protests and the progress of the revolution there. I phoned the guy myself and over the following nights recorded interviews with him about developments.

He was clearly caught up in the fear and excitement of events. In one interview he is in the street prematurely celebrating the fall of Gadaffi.

In another he is admitting his fear that the city will be attacked and saying he is amazed that people are ready to die.

One night he told me that he was recommending to protesters that they return the weapons they had captured from the army and trust the local commandos to protect them. Some were following this advice, others were holding onto the weapons, anxious that an army leader who had joined them the previous day now seemed to have disappeared.

I think these are important pieces of internet journalism and I hope they will provide raw material for a written piece on the difference between blogging and mainstream journalism.

Here are the four recordings I have made so far, the latest being at the top.

If you have time, start with the first at the bottom and listen to them all.