Reply #132: The voice of Libya's rebellion is up and spinning

[pinboy3niner]

Source: Los Angeles Times

The voice of Libya's rebellion is up and spinning


The burgeoning radio, TV and press empire of the rebels in eastern Libya is giving Moammar Kadafi's foes information and outlets many have never had. Not that the coverage is exactly balanced.


By David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times


April 7, 2011, 2:09 p.m.

...


Inside a makeshift sound studio, radio host Khalid Ali wearily rubbed his eyes. Voice of Free Libya radio — 98.9 on your FM dial — had just opened its caller lines for another round of hectoring.

...


It's not exactly fair and balanced media. In fact, as Fannoush helpfully pointed out, there are four inviolate rules of coverage on the two rebel radio stations, TV station and newspaper:

• No pro-Kadafi reportage or commentary (at least until the tyrant in Tripoli is deposed).

•No mention of a civil war. (The Libyan people, east and west, are unified in a war against a totalitarian regime.)

•No discussion of tribes or tribalism. (There is only one tribe: Libya.)

•No references to Al Qaeda or Islamic extremism. (That's Kadafi propaganda.)

As the rebels fight Kadafi's forces, they are also battling a Tripoli propaganda machine that controls radio, TV, newspapers and public dialogue in western Libya. The opposition's Western Hemisphere-educated, English-speaking spokesmen spin and cajole international reporters, who are free to roam eastern Libya while their colleagues in Tripoli are hemmed in by regime minders.

...


In late February, after the Kadafi government cut Internet service in the east, the rebels recruited a posse of young, tech-savvy volunteer hackers. They pounded away on laptops inside a darkened room in Benghazi's graffiti-streaked courthouse until they had built rudimentary Web connections.

Today, there is Wi-Fi inside the grimy courthouse complex, and a "media center" where journalists use the wireless connection to file their reports. To keep out hordes of young Libyans starved for Internet access, volunteer guards in red berets limit access to "accredited journalists" — anyone who manages to get hold of an official rebel press badge. (At last count, they numbered 1,000-plus.)


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-libya-rebels-media-20110408,0,5538115,full.story