http://www.boston.com/dailynews/290/nation/First_Internet_war_gives_Ameri:.shtml

First `Internet war' gives Americans non-American viewpoints

By Anick Jesdanun, Associated Press, 10/17/2001 16:38

NEW YORK (AP) For a better understanding of the military campaign in Afghanistan, Robert Greenan turns to Web sites from surrounding countries to avoid relying on U.S. media alone.

Otherwise, he'll be left with viewpoints diluted ''through our cultural upbringing and the way we see the world,'' said Greenan, who compiles the online ''Global Views'' newsletter for the Foreign Policy Association in New York.

At the University of Missouri, journalism research fellow Monideepa Banerjie visits sites in Pakistan and her native India. While U.S. news organizations were focused mainly on anthrax, she was reading elsewhere about the implications of a power vacuum in Afghanistan should the ruling Taliban collapse.

If World War II was experienced largely through radio and Vietnam by television, the Bush administration's war on terrorism is the nation's first to be followed online. And there are plenty of international viewpoints and news sources to sample.

Visits to foreign sites by Americans have increased since Sept. 11 but remain relatively low, limited largely to foreign policy scholars, expatriates and information junkies.

Other Americans are missing in-depth coverage of economic aid, refugees and other developments that ''don't figure as prominently here because we live so many thousand miles away,'' said Sree Sreenivasan, new media professor at Columbia University.

U.S.-based news organizations, including The Associated Press, do cover those issues, but the stories sometimes get buried on inside news pages or several links deep on Web sites.

Some stories can best be done by foreign journalists able to blend in with the population, said Asim Mughal, who runs an online Pakistan News Service from San Francisco using local reporters in Pakistan.

Giora Shamis, editor of the Israel-based DebkaFile, said his reporters have been covering terrorism since the mid-1980s and bring a unique understanding of regional politics, religion and mentalities.

The Internet's opportunities also carry risks.

DebkaFile, for instance, has its share of solid reports but also has admitted to mistakes. Its heavy reliance on anonymous sources has prompted comparisons to Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge.

Other sites merely rewrite or link to Western news stories, while some present statements from Taliban officials including claims of civilian deaths that may be exaggerated without attempts at independent verification.

Many news outlets in the region also are government-controlled.

''There is a `buyer beware' element for the consumer,'' said Bob Steele, director of ethics at The Poynter Institute, a journalism research center. ''Virtually anybody can create a site and call it journalism.''

Respected news organizations in the region include Dawn in Karachi, Pakistan, The Times of India and An-Nahar in Beirut, Lebanon. The British Broadcasting Corp. and other Western sources provide non-U.S. perspectives.

Americans who speak Arabic have even more choices, including the site for al-Jazeera, the Qatar television network that has been airing taped statements by Osama bin Laden.

Few outlets exist in Afghanistan, but several expatriates run sites from the United States. Abdullah Qazi and his two brothers scan sites around the world for stories and official statements they can post.

''Different papers from different countries see the same situation in different ways,'' said Qazi, who lives in Northern California. ''If you put everything out there, people can ... develop an understanding of what's going on on their own.''

-- Anonymous, October 17, 2001