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New Project Makes News Gathering in the Arab World Take a New Turn

A lot of news organizations already know what “crowdsourcing” is. Some have already started using it. However, a new real-time crowdsourcing project is making news gathering take a new turn. “Alive.in” knows how!

“Alive.in” is a project launched by international news startup Small World News. The startup’s team is using a group of Arabic translators to crowdsource the translation of the real-time messages left on @speak2tweet, a service launched by Google and Twitter during the Jan. 25 revolution in Egypt, allowing callers to tweet by calling one of three numbers and leaving a voicemail.  

Founded by American journalist and media specialist Brian Conley, the project first started with crowdsourcing the Egyptian revolution news. When Conley learned about Google’s collaboration with Twitter, he thought it’s time to put this service at a stronger use through Small World News, which he co-founded in 2005. The goal, according to the project’s website, is “to reach a wider audience.”

He then contacted Steve Wyshywaniuk, co-founder of the startup, and told him about Google’s new technology. “It hit him instantly that with the number of translators we’re connected to, he could assemble a team to help translate the calls,” Wyshywaniuk told ReadWriteWeb.

Conley then started reaching out to Arabic translators via Twitter, reported RWW. He then created a Google Docs spreadsheet from which they could collaborate on transcribing the messages and then translating them from Arabic to English, Spanish and German.

And that’s how “Alive in Egypt” started.

Today, “Alive.in” has expanded and is now covering Iraq, Libya and Bahrain.  Citizens of those countries are contributing with real-time photos, calls, videos and tweets, reaching out to the worldwide audience.

The new project has taken news gathering into an even more advanced path, thanks to the technology and the creativity of journalists and media enthusiasts like Conley, Wyshywaniuk and their hard-working team. Today, mainstream media outlets needs to rethink their strategy and apply new technologies at best use so that they survive and provide their audience with more up-to-date news.
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Note: The team of “Alive.in” encourage those interested in helping translate the messages they crowdsource by emailing translate@alive.in. Those interested in being involved with the project can contact @BaghdadBrian or @SmallWorldNews on Twitter.

(بالعربية)

The End of the Oppression Era in the Arab World

The sounds and images of the Jubilations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square filled my heart with joy. I still cannot believe it is happening in my lifetime. Finally, Arab dictators are no longer in power and Arab peoples are more defiant than ever.

I’ve always been a proud Arab, even though my Arabism was flushed down the toilet throughout the last 30 years of my life due to the series of failure that hovered over the region up until the Tunisian revolution.

What happened in Tunisia revived hope in my heart that my fellow Arabs are now strong, defiant and willing to oust their dictators no matter what force they need to face.

It is about time! Throughout my 30 years of life, Arab dictators were mostly the same. They gathered at the useless Arab summits, “discussing” hot topics affecting the Arab “Homeland” and congratulating each other for the “successes” they had achieved throughout their decades-long presidencies.

All of that while Arab peoples were hungry, unemployed and oppressed.

This time, however, things are no longer the same. A joke spread by Arab tweeps these days says that the new Arab summit, which will be held in Baghdad, will be an introduction summit where new leaders will introduce themselves for the first time!

For me, it’s not a joke. It’s real! It’s happening! And it’s happening in Baghdad where the last summit it hosted was in 1990 before Saddam invaded Kuwait.

As I was watching the flock of the wonderful news coming out from Tunisia and Egypt via Al Jazeera and Twitter, I couldn’t but wonder if I and my fellow Iraqis would have revolted against Saddam had he not been ousted by a bloody war.

Today, Tunisia and Egypt paved the road for a real democratic Arab world. No more silence. No more fear. Arabs are determined to ending the oppression eras of their totalitarian regimes. The road will be messy and maybe bloody but the reign of change has arrived and it won’t go back to where it was.

Long live Tunisia! Long live Egypt! Long live the quest for freedom and democracy in the Arab world!

Al Jazeera’s Success vs. the American News Networks’ Failure in Covering Tunisia

America was founded upon the principle of liberty and freedom, but guess who was covering the quest for freedom in Tunisia extensively yesterday? Al Jazeera, not the American news TV Networks!

I am utterly disgusted by how American TV channels have abandoned an important historic event of our time. Tunisian people took to the streets and toppled a Saddam-like totalitarian regime, but their voices and images from their revolution did not make it to the American viewers. CNN, FOX News and MSNBC were busy interviewing celebrities and discussing pet-related stories.

At work, I was able to follow Al Jazeera’s minute-by-minute coverage of the revolution through my iPhone. The Qatari network has an iPhone app that live broadcasts their news, in addition to its presence on Facebook, Twitter and Al Jazeera Blogs.

It was simply everywhere and for free!

Tech Crunch, a popular Web publication that offers technology news and analysis, summed it up in this article on how American news networks failed in covering the news. The article discussed how tweeps criticized American TV networks that were busy broadcasting news related to Marta Stewart’s dog and a guy who was arrested for drunk-driving a donkey in Texas on MSNBC, while CNN was busy interviewing the Jeopardy host about a robot contestant!

This is not journalism. What Al Jazeera did is!

And thanks to the social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook that brought the news to the American public, along with a few articles American newspapers published later in the afternoon yesterday.

Many know that Al Jazeera is unavailable in most American states, the thing that deprives millions of American viewers of watching breaking news with real, good reporting.

Making Al Jazeera, or at least BBC world (not the awful BBC America), available on air, cable or satellite will provide Americans with an alternate source to watch real news, not the heroic rescue attempt of a puppy who was stuck in freezing river.

Shame on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News for intentionally ignoring a gripping event that will directly affect the United States’ foreign policy if such a revolution is spread across the whole Arab world.

Christmas in Baghdad

The team of “Only for Iraqis” has again surprised us with a new online comedy animation video with a powerful message: Do it yourself and do not wait for others to do it for you!

Their new video starts with the narrator saying that on Christmas Eve the world was celebrating, except Baghdad because it was coated with lack-of-electricity darkness.

In the dark, an Iraqi child was waiting for Baba Noel (Santa Claus) to bring him the bicycle he wanted for Christmas. An Iraqi old man comes across him and tells him to go home because Baba Noel is giving presents in America, not here. The kid becomes angry and tells the old man he’s not going home unless he gets his bike. He was wondering why Baba Noel was giving presents to children all over the world, except the Iraqi children.

The old man feels bad and decides to help. He calls Santa but Santa was aggressive. He didn’t like how his name was turned into “Baba Noel.” He then calls Iraqis “terrorists” and says he’s not going to Iraq.

The old man then calls Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki for help! Unsurprisingly, the Prime Minister cannot help! Not willing to give up, the old man calls all his friends and acquaintances and posts a wall ad, calling on all Iraqis to bring their generators to use them light the Christmas tree and to do Christmas themselves this year.

And they did! They set up the huge Christmas tree and decorated it with lights they turned on through their generators. After the lights were on, Iraqis took to the streets to celebrate Christmas, and their city became brighter than ever, first time in years.

Indeed! The message in the video was very powerful. It urges Iraqis to stand up and start rebuilding their country themselves, instead of waiting for others to help them. It’s time to do that before it’s too late.

Watch the video (Arabic):

The New Islamic Republic of Iraq

Iraq has officially become like Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is now a country that bans music, theater and alcohol, a country that I can call the New Islamic Republic of Iraq.

What a tragedy! Why don’t they call it “banning life”?

Is that art?!

Last week, the Iraqi government shut down social clubs that serve alcohol in Baghdad, enraging the educated class who demonstrated against the extreme Islamic-inspired order. Today, Iraqis woke up to hear a far worse order; the Iraqi Ministry of Education has banned theater and music classes in Baghdad’s Fine Arts Institute, and ordered the removal of statues showcased at the entrance of the institute without explaining the move.

In a country that went through wars, sanctions and a horrific totalitarian regime, art remained defiant against Islamic extremism throughout centuries. Art has always been an integral part of Iraqis’ lives. Yet today the turbaned Mullahs, who are turning secular Iraq back into the Stone Age, have denied Iraqis’ the right of keeping art part of their country, erasing the Mesopotamian heritage that we inherited thousands of years ago. I wish the Sumerian makers of the Golden Guitar were alive, 3000 years later to see what has happened to their country.

Iraqis raised their voice and democratically elected a secular slate last March, but the Islamic fanatics who wrote the post-Saddam constitution wrote it in a way that they will always be the winners who will get the majority of the seats in the parliament.

We need two things: a new constitution and an atheist regime. Not secular, atheist. That’s how we can achieve success in arts, science and modernity. As long as there is a religious regime, no country will ever progress! Gods and politics will never reconcile. I choose not to side with religion. I choose to side with sanity.  

Celebrating Investigative Journalism in the Arab World

Representing ICFJ at the conference.

Investigative journalism in the Arab world has been an alien type of journalism that was never really powerful or effective, if existed. But in recent years, it has become more and more visible, despite the risks and dangers Arab investigative journalists face in defiance of their totalitarian governments.

The visibility and the new activity of this type of journalism appearing in several Arab news outlets has become more and more known and encouraged, thanks to international and regional media assistance organizations. Investigative journalism today is better than ever in the Arab world and is still in progress. Today, Arab investigative journalists are defying taboos and challenging high-level officials with facts they obtained through thorough investigation and reporting.

Such a vast improvement was evident at the Third Arab Investigative Journalism Conference, which was organized by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), a Amman-based, regional media support network that seeks to support independent quality professional journalism, through funding in-depth journalism projects, and offering media coaching.

During the conference, which was held from November 26 to 28 in Amman, Jordan, three investigative journalists from the Arab world were awarded the Seymour Hersh Award for Best Investigative Report.

I had the honor to represent my employer, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) there, meeting the winners and several other prominent Arab and international journalists such as Drew Sullivan from the United States, BBC’s Tim Sebastian from the United Kingdom, Mark Hunter from France, Hisham Qassem and Yosri Fouda from Egypt and others hailing from 16 Arab countries.

This year’s award was presented by ARIJ, in coordination with ICFJ, which last year honored American investigative reporter Seymour Hersh with its Founders Award for Excellence in Journalism, recognizing his outstanding work over 40 years. 

Me with the first place winner, Dlovan Barwari

The winners of the ARIJ/ICFJ Seymour Hersh Award were from Iraq and Egypt. Iraqi journalist Dlovan Barwari, whom I had the honor to work with for the Washington Post in Iraq, received the first place award for his investigative report that tackled the issue of the female circumcision in the northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan. His fellow Iraqi journalist, Milad Al Jibouri, won the second place for writing a report in which she investigated the recruitment of young Iraqis by militants and armed groups, taking advantage of their traumatic war-tainted childhood. The third place winner was Egyptian reporter Siham Al Pasha who investigated the use of poisonous material in furniture-making in Dumyat, Egypt and how this material is imported in broad daylight.

The three winning reports competed with 16 other reports that reached the finalists list. They were written by reporters from Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine.

To further boost independent quality investigative journalism in the Arab world, ICFJ has partnered with ARIJ to create six investigative units in Arab newsrooms. ICFJ’s Knight International fellow Amr El-Kahky is creating these first investigative reporting units in Jordan, Palestine and Egypt.

The one mile road starts with one step, so says the proverb. Investigative journalism in the Arab world is taking its baby steps. It’s flourishing and advancing to create better societies and communities. Kudos to ARIJ and ICFJ for making this happen!

People’s Souls

Photo Credit: Hadi Mizban, Associated Press, via The New York Times

I was with my mother in the back seat of a taxi cab, heading back home from the market, when the driver said something that still rings in my ears. I was eleven years-old then and it was 1991, right after the U.S.-led coalition forces ended their Desert Storm operation.

The streets were alive with people going back to work, shopping and retrieving a bit of their normal lives as cease fire was announced. Then, a few months before Baghdad’s infrastructure was rebuilt, Baghdad looked like a broken skeleton.

“We’re destroyed,” said the taxi driver, as he started a conversation with my mother.

“Inshallah, everything will be rebuilt and return to normal,” my mother said in a very hopeful and positive tone.

“They sure will,” he replied. “But who will rebuild the people’s souls?”

Nineteen years later, those words cannot but make me think of what happened, still happening and will happen. For a while I got carried away with the busy life in America, until the last few days’ terror attacks that rocked Baghdad brought me back to my senses. They reminded me that Iraqis’ wounds are far from healing, and that it will take generations to overcome this trauma.

Your Father Is Not a Victim, Mr. Aziz!

As I was checking the latest tweets on Iraq on my iPhone this morning, I came across a BBC World tweet that read “Tariq Aziz is a victim, says his son http://bbc.in/9uCfME.” I shook my head in disbelief as I read what the son said. I retweeted and commented, “No, he isn’t, said the Iraqi people!”

A few hours ago I listened to a recorded interview with him again, repeating his same statement on BBC’s Radio Live5, as I was waiting for the presenter to introduce me to the audience to comment on this topic.

He added that his father was not involved in criminal acts against Iraqis. He admitted that his father was in the government and that he was “serving his country,” and here where this statement set me off.

‘Up All Night’ program presenter Rhod Sharp knew what to ask me, and I expected it. As an Iraqi, do I agree?!

No, I don’t! I think Aziz was part of the tyrannical machine that held a strong grip on Iraq for three decades. He was one of the closest people to Iraq’s infamous tyrant for a long time, and was a loyal Baathist until the very end of the former regime in 2003.

Serving his country? He must be kidding me! A lot of Iraqis were tortured, killed, abused and exiled under his watch. He was not serving his country; he was serving Saddam and the Baath party that terrorized and destroyed Iraqis. He knew very well that he was a member of an abusive regime.

To my surprise, the Vatican urged Iraqi authorities not to carry out the death sentence against Aziz. The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told the AP that the Vatican usually would pursue any possible humanitarian intervention to halt an execution via diplomatic channels.

Hmm… I wonder why the Vatican didn’t intervene when the Saddam regime, to which Aziz belonged, executed Iraqis in every possible inhumane way. At least he was tried with dignity and put on trial unlike many under Saddam who were hanged, shot to death, put in burning acids and thrown in the human grinder that fed the fish in the Tigris River with fresh ground human meat.

But now the question is will his execution make a difference in the new Iraq? No it won’t. It’s a still a mess and a big mess. Will it bring Iraqis together? No it won’t. Will it divide them? They’re already divided. The only outcome I see is maybe the closure that those who were victimized by him will finally have.

Some say he’s an old, dying man! Yes, but justice is justice. It should not be based on emotions; it should be based on facts. Others say he was educated and well-spoken. I say, Saddam was educated and well-spoken too. Does that mean he should have not brought him to justice? And many say those in power in the new Iraq are worse. I totally agree, but does it mean we should not bring the former criminals to justice?

So yes, Mr. Ziad Aziz, your father was not a victim and you grew up watching your own people suffering by a tyrannical government with which your father worked! But I can’t blame you for defending him. He was your father after all.

WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs Are Out. Nothing New! Now What?

We all knew it. We all experienced it. We all weren’t surprised by it. And by ‘We’ I mean Iraqis who went through the successive years of mayhem since the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. 

The information in the 391,832 U.S. military documents that were released yesterday by the Whistle-blower website WikiLeaks did not come as a surprise to me. You shouldn’t be surprised either. Iraqis have been talking about this over and over for years on blogs, newspapers, TV and radio stations and through human rights organizations.

The Iraqi people have been frequently complaining since ever about torture conducted by the Iraqi police. They have said it nonstop that the foreign security contractors have been killing civilians haphazardly, and sometimes for no reason. Shiite militias controlled the streets of many cities in Iraq and appeared to be well trained by Iran to kill and torture.

Many thought we were exaggerating or saying things that are not supported by facts, but now our words are finally backed up by evidence! I’m happy these WikiLeaks documents finally came out. However the questions remains: Now What?!

The U.S. government apparently knew all about the killings of innocent Iraqis, Iran’s training of Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces’ abuse and rape of teenagers in prisons. Nevertheless, they decided not to take actions, not to intervene!

So what will the United States do in response to the that? Apologize to Iraqis? I don’t think so. Even if they do, will this bring back the lives of the thousands of civilians killed in the war? It won’t. Will it make Iraq safer? It won’t either. Will it change the current miserable political situation there? Not at all.

As an Iraqi, I don’t need an apology. I need justice. I need to see those who committed crimes against my fellow Iraqis get what they deserve. As for the Iraqi torturers, I don’t see them being brought to justice anytime soon, simply because they are under the same sectarian government that let this happen under their watch. We need a new government. We need new people to run the country and make this happen. Iraqis made their choice in last March elections, but the sectarian powers are refusing to give it to the moderates who were elected. Until this happens, I don’t think justice will ever be achieved in Iraq.