Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Nifonged in Nicaragua: Justice Crosses Borders With Social Media

Rodrigo Peñalba and Mario Delgado of Global Voices, a non-profit media project founded at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, have a post up today that briefly discusses the efforts of El Nuevo Diario to combat the exposure of its highly slanted and often deceptive coverage of the wrongful prosecution of Eric Volz.

The recent media campaign launched by the Volz family puts in doubt all of the commentaries, news stories, and reports published in the Nicaraguan media.

Taking advantage of YouTube, MySpace, and various blogs, the Volz family has managed to get the attention of North Americans television programs, opinion pages, and senators and representatives who can act at the political level to pressure the Nicaraguan judiciary.

...

In its national news section, El Nuevo Diario has responded to the online challenge to their coverage of the Volz case by insisting that their reports [ES] and facts are true; but they are also trying to change the opinions of relatives and friends of Eric Volz.

This, beyond the verity of facts, or the innocence of the involved parties, is a battle of Nicaragua’s traditional media (La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario, and TV news programs), against the social media pressure of the blogosphere, a new medium of journalism and collective information based on social relations made over the internet.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Strategically, I would give the internal Nicaragua process a chance to fix itself its mistakes a few more months.

And then launch lawsuits against the local prosectors and magistrates in the international criminal court.

US gov't officials may not like it but those bodies are very useful in applying pressure at small corrupt nations.