VOF Week 3: (Taking Part and Making the News)

It must've been back in 1989 when my friends and I would fight over who would use the typewriter an old man in our East Jerusalem neighborhood owned. Just like running, it had been a competition for us, and not to boast or anything, but I beat the hell out of them! Not only was I the fastest in running, but I beat them in typing too, which is probably because I was the most interested.

I would keep typing like the world depended on it. The hours would pass with just me and the typewriter sitting there; creating noise. Typing, typing, and then typing some more. I would get all the rare information searched in library books, magazines and radio stations, and I'd click and type all the treasured information into my important file.

Information: It was a luxury back in those days. The kids at our school would show off about what they knew and how they got about to knowing it. To get information back in those days involved serious work and dedication; sometimes it would also involve spending money, as information was not easy to get back then.

Now in 2009, information has lost its value. It flies around with hardly any attention. I hear that newspapers, magazines and even radio stations aren't doing as well anymore. Or, at least, the way in which we used to get the news has critically changed, to the point where we should afford to be more critical now.

On the one hand, it's a little scary to be disillusioned by the thought that we matter, as we are possibly more brainwashed than we think we are. After all, we all seem to be circling around the very same gigantic sources of information thrown in front of us without us even realizing it; but on the other hand, we get to have the choice (and the challenge) to decide where to direct our eyes these days. Today, more than ever before, we get to have the choice to pick what news to get, what source to believe, what opinion to trust, and what story to share.

We perhaps do not realize the value of what we have today. It is the chance to not only get the information easily, but to also be part of the information-giving process. We could lazily switch the channels, but we somehow know what we have that chance; to be part of and to be alive in the news. We have the chance to set an opinion, an action, a plee.

When I think of what ''blogging'' means in the media-world today, I would say it is about being given that chance to not only get the news, but to breathe, take part and make the news.