Established in March 2011, Alive in Libya is the only source of free and independent news created by Libyan journalists. (click to view project)
Our best practices and advice for producing media, boiled down to a 90 page PDF. Downloadable in English and Arabic.(click to view project)
Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad showed the conflict through the voices of Iraqis. (click to view project)
Small World News assembled a core team whose mission was to bring the voices of Egyptians directly to those who could not understand Arabic. (click to view project)
By combining reporting from Afghan journalists, news reports, and data from Election Observation Missions, it provided the world a timely and comprehensive understanding of events in Afghanistan. (click to view project)
Alive in Mexico covered everything from street battles in southern Mexico to Mexican culture and history, allowing viewers to tune in each week to learn something new about Mexico. (click to view project)
This week we’ve been looking at the different tools and tech being used by the local affiliate of the Occupy Together or Occupy Wall Street movement, also known as “We are the 99%.” Steve and Josh wrote about their experience at the protest, Josh investigating the opportunity posed by livestreaming, while Steve took some time [...]
With the growing momentum behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, I knew there would be a lot of press at the Occupy Portland march. Josh and I went over and watched as they kicked off their march to speak to the media who associated themselves with the movement, see what tools they were using, and [...]
Last week some of us from Small World News visited the Occupy Portland protest, a local spin-off of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have captured the national attention. We wanted to observe how citizen media was being utilized to cover the protests, and also to experiment with the tools of the trade. I’ve always [...]
Since launching in March, our journalists operating in Ajdabiya, Benghazi, and Misrata have produced 175 videos covering the revolution, the civil war, and the daily life of Libyan citizens. With the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Tripoli, Alive in Libya has now expanded to the capital, along with a new bureau in Zintan. Training [...]
Yesterday my colleague Steve Wyshywaniuk addressed how Citizen Media might assist Egyptians and the international community to bear witness to the upcoming election in Egypt. If the current ban preventing international observers continues, Egyptian citizens will be the only ones with the potential to ensure the validity of the election. After thirty years under Hosni [...]
At SWN HQ we’ve been discussing creative ways Egypt might be able to ensure their upcoming elections are free and fair. At this point the love affair between the Egyptian people and the Web last spring is painstakingly documented. But the recent announcement that the military council will maintain the emergency law into next year, shows that they need [...]
Yesterday in this space we discussed the upcoming elections in Egypt, and the need for international observers to work alongside local organizations to ensure the fairness and accuracy of the polls. International and local observers working together would allow reports of fraud, intimidation, and other improprieties to be more easily verified, increasing the legitimacy [...]
Reuters reports: Egypt will start parliamentary elections on November 21, Al Arabiya Television and the Al-Ahram newspaper reported on Saturday, the country’s first vote since a popular uprising toppled President Hosni Mubarak in February after 30 years of autocratic rule. Al-Ahram quoted Egypt’s election commission head, Abdel Moez Ibrahim, as saying voting for the lower [...]
Somali refugees in Kenya lack basic access to communication and information about the aid and services available to them. From Internews: The assessment surveyed over 600 refugees and shows that large numbers of displaced Somalis don’t have the information they need to access basic aid: More than 70 percent of newly-arrived refugees say they lack [...]
While most Americans spent this last weekend celebrating the Labor Day holiday, the world of media didn’t take a vacation. Here’s a couple of cool stories from around the internet that you won’t want to miss: Building Media City-by-City The US Embassy in Kabul reported on its Facebook page that the first of many USAID-funded [...]
From the Ushahidi blog: The Ushahidi community consists of a diverse group of people who have helped extend, translate and deploy the platform around the world. The Beta version in 2009 was translated into Spanish, even before Swahili. That early adoption and use lay the groundwork for even more adoption in Latin America, and with [...]
This morning, the Online Journalism Blog ran an interview with the creators of a UK-based hyperlocal news site, South Norwich News. While the model of hyperlocal journalism is controversial (is it needed? is it sustainable?), creator Claire Wood is confident that hyperlocal content is a worthy companion to larger media outlets: We’re very much in [...]
Earlier this month I went to work at IREX Georgia in Tblisi, on behalf of Small World News, to give workshops for their Gmedia initiative. The workshops were focused on digital advocacy, with participants from many different types of media, NGO’s and even some independent individuals. They all came with a desire to learn more [...]
We’d like to announce that we’ve started producing our first training guide, Small World News’ Guide to Safely and Securely Producing Media. We’ve wanted to produce this guide for a long time now, and we thrilled to finally have the time and the resources to make it happen. We’re planning to release this free downloadable [...]
Previously we’ve written here about how citizen media – the stories of those on the ground – can be used to provide much-needed context for journalists, analysts, and policy makers. Knowing the specifics of what’s happening, and learning it from the locals themselves, ensures better intelligence and therefore better decision making. But what does citizen [...]
Mark Rendeiro is in Georgia this week training locals to use new media tools for public campaigns, specifically related to advocacy. He’s blogging about his trip on his website Citizen Reporter. While some nations in the EU curse their governments for not representing them in what is financially a very troubled union, here we find [...]
From the Wall Street Journal: Syria shut down most of its Internet and mobile data connections early Friday, adopting a strategy used by other governments in the Middle East during critical points of the uprisings. But the attempt to gain an advantage over the opposition groups by unplugging or partially blocking the Internet, which has [...]
From Donia Jarrar’s blog: On April 8th, 2011 I had the opportunity to give a TEDx Talk as part of TEDxUofM at the historic Michigan Theater in front of a 1700 member audience. I was very lucky to be able to speak as a part of such an inspiring group of people, and that I [...]
From President Obama’s speech on the Middle East and North Africa, delivered this morning at the State Department: We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo ” to build networks of entrepreneurs, and expand exchanges in education; to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the [...]
Last weekend, the Small World News team attended Digital Journalism Camp 2011 in downtown Portland. Digital Journalism Camp is about spending the day with the people who are actively changing journalism. You’re going to learn from ” and share with ” the people who have found solutions to the challenges you face, whether you’re a [...]
David Kenner wrote this week about President Obama’s news sources for Foreign Policy‘s Passportblog: With one sentence, the New York Times raised dozens of Middle East pundits’ hopes that their words were reaching the most powerful man in the world. “At night in the family residence…Mr. Obama often surfs the blogs of experts on Arab [...]
In March 2011, Brian Conley and Louis Abelman journeyed to Benghazi to lay the foundation for Alive in Libya. Entering Libya through the Egyptian border in the east, and arriving just three weeks after the revolution began, they set about making contact with local citizens at a media center set up by the opposition movement. [...]
(Very secret and personnel) TO: Intelligence Agency for Home Security Headquarters of General Security Central Headquarters for Security Workers Security Group Officer Security Department Mr. General- General Managers of the agencies Mr. General Inspector of Home Security Greetings: Recently reported that some troubling elements published a page on the Facebook, the network for [...]
Since March 11, Small World News has been in Benghazi, Libya, with a generous grant from Access getting Alive.in/Libya off the ground. We’ve been hard at work training a team of citizen video journalists recruited among local youth. In a short week, we exposed participants to the basics of video production and overcame the technological [...]
Video: How to attain Democracy after Revolution [Arabic Subtitles]
Video: 15 year old Abdul Fattah Ahmad detained for 22 days speaks. | @Jan25voices
English: Peace be upon you. I am an Egyptian citizen. I call upon the high council of the military forces to fight firmly against all unlawful elements that attempts to burn the archives/records, the archives/records of the corrupt, defunct government. I wish that the military forces would take a firm stance against these individuals even [...]
English: Peace be upon you. I am an Egyptian citizen. I call upon, the high council of the military forces to abolish the state security apparatus. That failed apparatus, that tool of the old regime, has to be abolished completely, and not be reformed or restructured in any way or shape. This apparatus is a [...]
English: Peace be upon you, I am an Egyptian citizen and political activist, my name is (…) I say to the Egyptian nation, upwards and onwards, Egypt, when it is healthy, the entire Arab nation is healthy and if it is sick, so is the entire Arab nation. I say, Egypt shall not perish, Egypt [...]
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