Nitin Desai is doing part of this session as a stand-alone talk at We Media. Some of his perspectives are really balancing what appears to be a definite balance in the conference where there is a US and Europe bias when it comes to perceiving media.
Mr Desai has extended the scope of the discussion in a situation where MSM does not have adequate teeth, or where MSM is simply not interested. These include where governments are authoritarian and dissent is not tolerated, cases where gender, racial and social inequity gaps are very wide and where simple technology has played a big role. In that sense he talks of citizen journalism as citizen activism.
On MSM and New Media
The challenge that we face is to find the business model which can combine the professionalism of Mainstream Media… with what we have on the web – …the mechanim to collaborate, which is user and community based. …Do not do it simply in the North Atlantic context, but in other contexts as well…
Why BBC is trusted
The Government once in a while says how biased BBC is. My advice to Media – get the government to say you’re biased!
On People Power and Governments
Governments have underestimated people power. Media hasn’t underestimated it but hasn’t adjusted to it. We’re still thinking in old modes.
On Communities
The challenge is to bring together different communities, who all assume that their cause is the most important. There is no one community that you can say is the most important.
