WWII was brought home via the radio. Vietnam via TV. Gulf War I via live TV. Gulf War II will be blogged.
We’ve had the war blogs, and then the anti-war blogs, and now the meta-war blogs, and these will all shift into high gear a week or two from now in an orgy of point and counterpoint and I-told-you-sos and last words. But the most interesting posts will come from blogs on the ground. Kevin Sites, a CNN foreign correspondent covering the war, started his blog 4 days ago, and so far all of it has been riveting reading.
Of course, blogging from inside the warzone could come to a screeching halt with a single use of the fabled electromagnetic pulse bomb.Chance of this being used in Iraq: 80% I think. Barring that, we could be in for some interesting color.
And sound. Latest innovation in the blogosphere is audioblogging, whereby you call in your post to your Blogger.com-powered siteThe site promises to support other engines, including Movable Type, soon. and your visitors can listen to the audio. The likely success of this meme among arm-chair bloggers is questionable, but for those personal publishers in the field, far from internet access but close to a phone and with something urgent to say, this makes all the sense in the world. It is the marriage of radio’s immediacy with the internet’s scalability, and makes potential radio broadcasters of us all.
From radio in WWII to radio in GWII: The wheel turns full circle. Oh dear, just noticed GWII could also stand for the current Prez. Guess this war will indeed define his presidency.
I still can’t read the microscopic marginalia..
K
Well, kevin Sites’s site is down, because CNN pulled the plug. You can read Matthew’s article about blogging, which mentions why, here.