The most fascinating journalism book I have ever read is called Dateline Earth: Journalism as If the Planet Mattered, written by Kunda Dixit. I have a signed copy of it, (unfortunately its signed for Surendra Phuyal, a senior journalist at The Kathmandu Post, whom I never returned the book). I also dont like to miss his satirical column in the Nepali Times, Under My Hat, but a workshop gave me an opportunity to listen to his thoughts on Internet as a Medium of Mass Media which I find quite interesting.
A five-day training workshop on Online Journalism and Web Publishing, organized by Panos South Asia, was the forum where Kunda was a resource person. He called himself the one belonging to a school of Internet-skeptic but nevertheless added that he have gradually found it of more potential.
Kunda believed Internet in terms of digital encoding is a big leap in mass media after radio. During 1993/4 in Manilla, when someone said Yahoo!, I thought what the hell is Yahoo!? he said. At first Internet was thought to be a totally democratic media and we had a dream that it would be non-profit and free.
But the dream didnt lasted long, soon in mid-90 there was convergence of ownership and Internet suddenly became commercialized, he added. It sounded to me like a paragraph somewhere in Dateline Earth.
Interactivity of Internet, according to Kunda is just amazing and the greatest asset of the medium. Creditability on the other hand is the major concern. Unrestricted content, anything about anyone in with any terms from language, he said. And the society doesnt understand clearly about this issue of the Internet.
It felt quite good listening from him it was as fruitful as the others sessions of the day. The training workshop is being participated bya dozen journalists from the South Asia region and exchanging the ideas of online journalism, learning about the practices and problems in the neighboring countries was an experience from me. I hope to learn more from them in next four days.
