Rebecca MacKinnon and Josh Chin report live from the Chinese Bloggers Conference which took place this weekend in Beijing. From Josh’s Ch-Infamous blog:
Of the events I’ve actually managed to concentrate on, so far the most noteworthy panel (for foreigners at least) has been a debate, moderated by Rebecca MacKinnon, on the relationship between blogging and traditional media. An old topic, yes. But still relevant in China, where blogs count as virtually the only independent source of news. Talk quickly turned from whether bloggers are journalists to blogs as guardians of free speech arrayed against a soul-snuffing government, whereupon the Jiwai.de message board lit up: “Why talk about such sensitive things?” “Chaos on the stage!” “Is bloggers’ responsibility really so grand?” [Full text]