FreshNetworks Blog

There are many reasons people write blogs and many reasons people read them. The best are when somebody knows something that isn’t easily or widely known by others, or where you want a particular view on things.

Getting news from Zimbabwe is not easy at the moment. The next round of Presidential elections is next weekend and although there are reports in the press and on TV, these are often limited. In fact many Western journalists are not allowed to report from the country so too often we’ve seen people in South Africa, standing on the border with Zimbabwe and telling us what’s going on in the country.

In this environment, where there is a depth of real insight from inside the country, blogs have come into their own. They’re a way for people to report what is happening to them and in their environment. A way for others to spead news of what’s happening and to inform and engage people in the country and outside. Blogs are never as independent or objective as news reports. But they’re not really news. They’re a way for you to get inside an event, inside a country and read one person’s view on what is really happening.

As I’ve written before about the US election campaign (see post here), I tend to take a more scatter gun approach to tracking events in blogs. Searching for terms when I want an update and reading a range of recent posts from different people. But with the Zimbabwe situation there are a couple of sources I’m following regularly. They’re each a slightly different type of blog and I read them for different reasons.

• This is Zimbabwe is from Sokwanele, a Civic Action Group. Its updates are factual and report arrests of members of the opposition. The blog is used to report where people are held, and to get information out to other Zimbabweans and others. They also act as an aggregator of news on Zimbabwe for people to read in one place and are a good overview of what’s actually happening on the ground. They also have a Twitter feed which reports on events in real time: @sowanele.
• The UK High Commission in Harare is blogging about their experiences in the country. This is part of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s policy of corporate blogging. The entries are insightful and offer a unique view on what’s happening in the country. A recent post about a trip to the town of Zaka is definitely worth a read (see the post here). This blog is based on personal experiences but is written by British and Zimbabwean employees of the British High Commission and so their access to events is different and their opinions are informed by their professional experience and roles. It’s a great source.

Both of these shows the ways blogs are used and the power they have both in disseminating information but also, critically for uniting people who have common interests.