August 30, 2004
BBC on P2P news networks

So this is what was happening when I was rafting the Usumacinta last spring.

(In the following quote, substitute "Mexico and Guatemala" for "Peru" and we're getting close.)

BBC NEWS | Technology | File-sharing to bypass censorship

In his vision, people around the world would post stories via anonymous P2P services like those used to swap songs.

They would cover issues currently ignored by the major news services, said Prof Anderson.

"Currently, only news that's reckoned to be of interest to Americans and Western Europeans will be syndicated because that's where the money is," he told the BBC World Service programme, Go Digital.

"But if something happens in Peru that's of interest to viewers in China and Japan, it won't get anything like the priority for syndication.

"If you can break the grip of the news syndication services and allow the news collector to talk to the radio station or local newspaper then you can have much more efficient communications."

Posted by Dave at August 30, 2004 07:39 PM