Oxygen, By Word Of Mouse

Daddy Bush had a massive advantage over Bush Junior. So did the "mainstream" media. They got away. With murder. Literally. But not any more. There’s real Internet now. Andthat’s making all the difference.

The "mainstream" is being pushed. Slowly, subtly, and far less radically thanits critics would wish. But it is happening. Not by any advertising. But sheerword of mouse.

Quibbles about what is "mainstream" or conversely what makes alternative media alternative? (as Michael Albert of Znet asks in a hardhitting essay on Znet) can perhaps be set aside when it comes to the role played by the Internet in reporting and making sense of this current "war".

The mere fact that Robert Fisk or people like Amy Goodman, i.e. accomplished, credible journalists, are relied on by the "alternative sites" is a testament to the fact that the alt.press isn't just about ranting ideologues, suggests Sonia Shah, feminist and New York-based author. Their readership would have been limited to the circulation of their printpublications in the past. But now, with internet, they have a world-wide audience. Thanks to their websites and e-mail.

Rahul Mahajan, an intrepid news watcher and analyst, suggests that the "bomb them with butter" idea on alt sites went so far on the Internet that it did help to shape public opinion, and forced the administration to come up with a humanitarian cloak.

Afghans are not on-line, but reports by, say, the al-Jazeera manage to make their wayaround. Under pressure, major TV networks might only give a passing reference,but one could surely pick up a translated full text of the latest outrage fromal-Qaida on, say, outlookindia.com, since the al-Jazeera website is not in English. And then those who, let's say, like to share their edification take over. Bombardments by e-mail follow. Competition ensures that the wire services have to carry it, and eventually some news makes it into your local paper. Even if accompanied by caveats and dissertations on Taliban propaganda (and not the Pentagon's), but it still gets out.

Take Noam Chomsky, a key dissident intellectual with tons of experience andscholarship on the issues facing us today. There's been a blockade against himin mainstream (read American) news media for years. But this time around evenCNN was constrained to have him for a chat on their website. He was on NPR too,even if briefly.

But most of that was post Sep 11 ('Terror Tuesday') and pre October 7 ('Sinister Sunday'?). With the bombings on Afghanistan, Michael Albert of Znet points out,"things closed up, as might be anticipated of a servile media". Invitationsto national talk-shows suddenly ceased. But not on the websites. Znet and otheralt websites are recording a surge in hits. And it is not because of sheeranti-Americanism or anti-war stance adopted by most of the "progressives"(‘Liberal’ is a not too clean word in their lexicon. Clinton did to it what Advani did to secularism, perhaps?). Combative name-calling (notably, Christopher Hitchens writing on the website of the Nation) only livened up the debate. Chomsky, Albert, Tariq Ali et al were quick with their rebuttals.

When the world and the words get ballistic, mailing lists go berserk. And they did.In-boxes overflowed similarly when "mainstream" Guardian publishedDawkins or Polly Toynbee on religion, spinning off discussions on mailing listsand setting up new websites (most notably at www.secularislam.org)

Signalto noise ration has always been a problem on the net but the alt websites (try www.altpress.orgfor a good listing and the edge for a greatcompendium of counter views) have made it possible for the rhetoric to be tampered withreason. And it isn’t as if it’s all ponderous, pontificatory, platitudinalpieties and puff.

The blur between kookiness and flakiness or sheer old fashioned blunt talkgets good play too. The Onion and michaelmoore.com have beenpopular and provocative as have been individuals, like Laurence Simon, whosuddenly assumed cult status merely on the strength of one piece of inspiredwriting that did the rounds of the web.

Noless was that one piece discussed than were the effusions from the likes ofEdward Said, Chomsky, Dawkins, Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Francis Fukuyama andother Big Names. Butalmost every one admits and agrees that the Internet has made a far moreinformed and educated debate possible on this war than on any that has beenfought so far. All the more reason for us to hope for a time when the digitaldivide in India narrows so that a more diverse opinion on India comes to bearticulated, discussed and debated.

(A slightly condensed version of this appeared in print. The author isExecutive Editor, www.outlookindia.com)