24 December 2012

REMEMBER WHAT WE DON'T KNOW

Can you imagine what it's like to be in the bunker with Bashar Al-Assad? I can, but it's not journalism. As his regime crumbles – or does Russian military aid keep it going? – all the user-generated-content new-media palaver shows only that his regime is brutal and cynically prepared to do anything to stay in power. We've got more pictures than we're used to. Some of them are shocking. But are we any better informed about what is actually going than the outside world was in 1917 about the October revolution in Russia? We're not, and technology will never replace journalists on the ground. Where is the correspondent with Assad's ear?

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