Is truth being buried by the rise of new media ?

I was in Bangkok earlier in the month and saw an editorial in 'The Nation' that provoked me to respond as the writer was criticising those of us who use webs and blogs.

He says, " Rather than bringing us closer together, websites and blogs are bringing more hatred, division and misinformation than ever before."

Speaking at a commencement ceremony in Virginia, Obama - a known user of BlackBerry, as well as Twitter and Flickr - singled out Apple's iPods and iPads for criticism. No, he wasn't cheering one item over another; he was trying to make the point that these high-tech gizmos and applications are straining American democracy.

"With iPods and iPads and X-boxes and PlayStations - none of which I know how to work - information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said at Hampton University in Virginia. "These are distractions that are putting unnecessary pressure on the country."

It may seem that Obama was being hypocritical, given the fact that he has used such gizmos in his presidential campaign and in his current office. But if we look at his message with an open mind, we can't deny the fact that he has a point.

Obama lamented the spread of social media and blogs, through which "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction".

While Obama's message was for American consumption, Thailand and the rest of the world are not immune to this phenomenon.

"We can't stop these changes," he said, "but we can adapt to them. And education is what can allow us to do so. It can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time."

Thailand has come to know the "changes" that Obama was talking about. However, we can't say wholeheartedly that these changes are for the better. Much of the news about these new technologies, often disseminated through the so-called "new media", are associated with crime, such as theft and pornography, not to mention intrusion into private lives.

Modern telecommunications and Internet technology may make our business transactions faster and allow us access to information at the push of a button - as the makers of these devices claim that they are linking people closer to one another - but in reality they don't make us better people or help us better understand the world we live in.

Too often we confuse information with knowledge. Because we confuse these two very different ideals, there is a tendency to believe almost anything that is posted on the Internet or sent via Twitter. This is a dangerous development.

"With so many voices clamouring for attention on blogs, on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult at times to sift through it all, to know what to believe, to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not," Obama said.

The users of the so-called "new media" of blogs, Twitter and Websites all operate on "real time" and they cannot and will not wait 24 hours before releasing their information - accurate or not. And so they grab at anything politicians say or do without putting it in a proper context. In other words, it's not hard for the new breed of shameless politicians and others to exploit this reality.

In a traditional newspaper, information is ditched every 24 hours. While this gives the public time to sift out the truth and form considered opinions, it also greatly reduces the free space to spin out lies or half-truths.

While Obama was referring to American society when he said "All of this is not only putting new pressures on you. It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy", we cannot deny that the same can be said for many other countries.
In some parts of Asia, where governments are dealing with vicious opposing voices, these new communication platforms have generated more hatred, misinformation and societal division than ever before.

Unfortunately, we can't turn back the clock. We can only, as individuals, employ sound judgement and not be fooled into believing everything that the spin-doctors and bloggers want us to believe.

This should be a lesson to all of us who blog, or communicate on social media, to take this democratic right responsibly, and seriously, to sift the chaff from the wheat, and try to be as accurate as possible in what we write about.

But like everything else in this world, that is easier said than done.

114 years of Red Cross experience

L to R. Jerry Talbot. former head of IFRC Asia and Pacific Dept, Alistair Henley, Director, Asia Pacific Zone, IFRC, and Bob McKerrow Head of delegation IFRC, Indonesia. Photo:  Jason Smith

A few weeks back I was in our Asia and Pacific zone office in Kuala Lumpur and met up with Alistair Henley and Jerry Talbot, and at the farewell for Peter Lundberg I spied Jerry and Alistair together. I did some quick calculations and said to Jason Smith our communications expert, "there is at least 114 years experience among the three of us." Jason rushed off and grabbed  his camera, and took this shot.

A little more about these two dedicated Red Cross workers.

Alistair Henley has worked with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies since 1981. He is currently Director, Asia Pacific Zone responsible for managing the IFRC’s operations and general activities in the entire Asia Pacific region from the Zone Office set up in July 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Before that he was Head of the East Asia Regional Delegation based in Beijing from 2003 to 2007. He served as Director of the Development Cooperation Department in Geneva from 1995 to 2000 and Head of the Coordination Department from 2000 to 2003. In these 2 posts he worked with donors to build up support for the Federation’s National Society capacity building goals and longer term programme appeals. This is one of many of Alistair's strengths, his ability to inspire confidence in donors and to negotiate long term funding. When I worked in Afghanistan, Alistair did sterling work in promoting our work and ensuring we got adequate funding.

Between 1989 and 1993 he headed the Regional Delegation for Southern Africa in Harare, and worked as a desk officer in the Asia Pacific and Africa departments of the IFRC (1981 to 1989). He started his Red Cross career with the British Red Cross Society in London (1978-1981).

He holds a Master’s degree in East Asian studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Alistair's grandfather and grandmother were amazing people who worked in what is today's Georgia and Azerbijan from about 1906 up until the collapse of Czarist Russia. He has a stunning collection of his grandparent's photos which is  a real treasure.

Alistair has a encylopedic knowledge of the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement and had the unenviable task in decentralising the leadership of our Asia and Pacific department from Geneva, to Kuala Lumpur, a task he has done with great verve and aplomb.

Jerry Talbot retired on Monday, 31 March 2009, after 42 years uninterrupted service to Red Cross. Jerry Talbot the former special representative to the secretary general for the tsunami operation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, was an outstanding leader, with excellent vision, who took a long-range perspective on the big things and was able to develop concepts. He focused on people and inspired trust in all he met. He was gifted with a strong intellect and made a huge contribution for over 40 years to global humanity.

Bill Clinton with his arm round Jerry Talbot on the far left, when Clinton visited the Maldives.

Jerry comes from a large family who still farm In Onga Onga in the Hawkes Bay.

Not surprisingly with his farming background, his second assignment for the New Zealand Red Cross in 1969 was taking some bulls for breeding in Western Samoa. I often joked with him that he was an impressive bull-shipper. The year before that,  he spent one year in Vietnam working on livelihoods programmes for displaced people. For 14 years he was Secretary of the New Zealand Red Cross and under his leadership, it developed into a very well functioning organisation. Next he moved to Geneva in 1990 where he became head of the Asia Pacific Region for the IFRC. Jerry is married to Jen, a very lively and intelligent women, and the have three married sons.

During his Red Cross career he spent time helping his sister run the family farm and when possible, he would slip off to a quiet stream or river, where he indulged in fly fishing. There, like on Thoreau's Walden Pond, Jerry would reflect on the troubled world and come back more motivated to change the world.

In January 2005. Jerry moved to the Maldive Islands where the IFRC built thousands of houses, put in new water supplies, restored livelihoods and assisted many thousands of families. One on the greatest tributes to Jerry Talbot is through his leadership and vision on Dhuvaafaru Island in Raa Atoll, where the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has created new homes for more than 3,700 people who were displaced from their original island after the Indian ocean tsunami struck in 2004.

So that's a bit of a ramble about Alistair and Jerry, (pictured above) two guys I have come to admire greatly over the years.