Posts Tagged citizen journalism

Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad Jailed by Beijing Police

Posted by mistergroonk in USA, World on August 21, 2008

This story on Brian Conley appeared in my email via Read or Alive‘s Ultimate Josh.

Beijing – Brian Conley, creator of the well-known videoblog, Alive in Baghdad, was detained with his friend, Jeffrey Rae, early Tuesday, August 19th in Beijing. Their detention appears to have taken place at the same time as that of international artist James Powderly, whose detention was reported Tuesday. Three other bloggers and activists, Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss, and Tom Grant, have also been missing since Tuesday morning. Conley, 28, Rae, 28, Goldin, 40, Liss, 35, Grant, 39 are all American citizens.

The five “citizen journalists” and activists were in Beijing to support and promote human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom for the Tibetan people. They and numerous others have acted as an independent media centre for the dozens of pro-Tibet activists in Beijing who have sought to draw attention to the Chinese government’s occupation of during the Olympics

Mainstream media seems to want to ignore this bit of news. I wonder why.

According to hotel staff, Rae and Conley checked out of their hotel in Beijing before dawn Tuesday morning. At 12:30pm Beijing time on Tuesday, Conley’s wife in Philadelphia received a text message from him reading “In Jail. All fine.” A “twitter” message to Students for a Free Tibet suggested that they were being held with James Powderly, the artist and co-founder of Graffiti Research Lab who was preparing to debut a new work and technology of protest, the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil. (See http://freetibet2008.org/globalactions/jamespowderly/)

Be sure to read the full story here.

It seems I made a note of Brian Conley’s efforts back in 2006.

If the mainstream won’t say boo about this, the blogosphere must. Spread the word as far and wide as you can. We must remember that the country holding one of the last few international gestures that immediately bring up the thoughts of hope and peace is the same government known to have committed terrible violations of humans rights.

Other blogs are talking:

Why aren’t you?

UPDATE: Under law the Chinese government has “72 hours before it is required to notify an embassy about foreign nationals who have been detained.” It is currently 60 hours and counting.

UPDATE UPDATE:

(via read or alive, Brian Conley’s Twitter, Free Tibet 2008, Alive in Baghdad)

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The “Dark Miracle” is here

Posted by mistergroonk in History, USA on April 16, 2006

Not long ago an article in net-funded journalism is born.

Joshua Ellis had an idea…an experiment. The Trinity test site in New Mexico was about to open to the public, the one of 2 times it does that a year, and he decided to journey there and write a 2,500 word essay about the experience. The only thing was, he didn’t had the funds for such a trip. So he asked people on the net to donate, via BitPass, the money necessary to make the trip and write the article.

His minimum goal was $500 and he reported soon after this post that he more than passed that goal.

A little while later — the “Dark Miracle” article was released into the web.

The teaser:

Oppenheimer“Dark Miracle“
by Joshua Ellis

There’s an old story that in the hours before dawn on July 16th, 1945, a young woman named Georgia Green was being driven back to school at the University of New Mexico by her sister Margaret and her brother-in-law Joe. Suddenly, she saw a bright flash of light, and she gripped Joe’s arm hard enough to make him swerve the car. “What’s that light?” she asked.

The thing is, Georgia Green was blind.

At that moment, some fifty miles away, a tall, gaunt man in a porkpie hat was also staring at the light, through a pair of darkened welder’s glasses. He was the architect of Georgia Green’s dark miracle, and he was very, very tired — as tired, perhaps, as anyone can be and still move and breathe. It had been a long road coming out to this empty desert spot, which he called Trinity. It had been a long war.

Some of the men around him cheered. Some of them wept. A few, mostly scientists, were quietly sick in the sand beyond the dim lights of their camp. But he just stood and watched the great glowing mushroom cloud that rose in the darkness like a judgment from one angry god or another.

I am become Death, thought Robert Oppenheimer, remembering an ancient Hindu text. I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

The rest can be read here.

The pictures here.

(via zenarchery)

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