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GLOBAL VOICES ONLINE 2005 LONDON SUMMIT

Global Voice is an international effort to diversify the conversation taking place online by involving speakers from around the world, and developing tools, institutions and relationships to help make these voices heard.

Within one year of its birth, Global Voices Online has become successful to be a platform of communicating previously unheard voices around the world. With its regional editors' & contributors' unbiased and enthusiastic contributions by digging from blogs and other news sources, co-founders Rebecca MacKinnon & Ethan Zuckerman have achieved a phenomenal goal, giving universal access to the tools of speech- blogs. Excerpts from Global voices new mission statement:

"Thanks to new tools, speech need no longer be controlled by those who own the means of publishing and distribution, or by governments that would restrict thought and communication. Now, anyone can wield the power of the press. Everyone can tell their stories to the world."

The Gloval Voices Online summit 2005 took place in London yesterday. You can take a look at what went on there:

* The live conference blog
* Pictures uploaded in Flickr
* Listen to the webcast
* Wiki of session notes
* Session by session updates from Dina Mehta & Neha Viswanathan.

Being a regional editor, Neha spoke for South Asian bloggers. She did a quick round-up on journalist-blogger issues in South Asia:

"It's contextual - where mainstream media doesn't do its job - bloggers do it. In the Bangladesh bomb blasts, bloggers took the lead. In Nepal, on the other hand, blogs were supporting mainstream media. In India there is now the emergence of blatant plaigarism by traditional media off blogs. Also, she raised the issue of - do bloggers want to be journalists?"

As for me I would rather like to be a blogger than a journalist, with no specific assignment desk and deadlines to rule over me.

globalvoices