Friday, 15 September 2000

Wired Service: Online Journalism in Europe

This originally appeared in Central Europe Review on 15 September 2000. It was based on a presentation I made at the Journalists' Working Group of the 12th European Television and Film Forum, organised by the European Institute for the Media in Bologna, Italy, a few days before. I think what I said back then about online journlaism has withstood the test of time.

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The topic of this discussion is meant to be "online journalism in transition countries," but that title is immediately suspicious.

First, there are some unfortunate misconceptions inherent in the phrase "transition countries." Like the term "post-Communist," it is a phrase which replaced the term "Communist" or "Soviet bloc" immediately after 1989. Such labels were useful terms back in the early 1990s, but they have no meaning today.