How should we cover Iraq via the blogs?
On Tuesday's segment I think we'll have to take a look at the story that's front page of BBC News on-line today
Bloggers too have been writing about the issue of whether or not Iraq is in a civil war. By coincidence my blog reading this morning began with the Baghdad based blogger 24stepstoliberty who wrote that:
"Until now, no Iraqi government official was honest and clear enough to go in public and say “we have a civil war in the country” although all indications show that we passed the suitable time for such a sentence. The right sentence a government official should say now is “HELP. We cannot stop the civil war in the country.”"
It's part of a much longer post. While bloggers write about the violence in Iraq, they've also been victims of it. Salam links to an account of one blogger's death
But it would be very wrong to suggest that all those who blog about Iraq are pessimistic. From the US we have a blog post from All Things Conservative highlighting the latest Brookings Iraq Index containing signs of progress.
The truth is that opinions in the blogs are as diverse and complex as the situation itself and the only thing to do is dive in, read widely and make up your own mind. For a start I'd recommend Iraqiblogcount which lists many blogs from Iraq, but I'd also take a look at Milblogging.com to get the perspective of the US troops over there. I might also stop by some of the big American political blogs like The Daily Kos and Instapundit.com. But there are many more as a search of technorati.com will quickly demonstrate
All of which still leaves the question: how to cover the issue on Tuesday? Suggestions welcome.



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