The fine folks at Reporters Without Borders have written what they call a handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents:
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.
It’s a solid introduction to the basics of blogging, and available for free download to boot. But the most compelling reading comes in the first-person accounts from bloggers living under — and reporting on — repressive regimes:
As journalists we come to know many things that never made to the papers like one that was published in RFN – the King acquiring personal properties in an inappropriate way. Many journalists knew that, criticized that, laughed at the King but couldn’t write it.
The other purpose RFN served was to spread Nepal’s situation among many people around the world. Nepal’s situation could have gone unheard of by many thousands of people if there hadn’t been RFN. This I think is good for making conscience among the world population to think about the country.
