Global Voices Online

Global Voices is a community of more than 500 bloggers and translators around the world who publish reports from blogs and citizen media, emphasizing "voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media."

This 2011 post features short videos on gender equality from Ukraine.

This 2010 post features a public protest by a very brave professor and blogger in China, offering himself as a slave.

Video and Blogging for Human Rights

Launched in 1992 with the help of musician Peter Gabriel, the nonprofit Witness.org began distributing video cameras in hopes of minimizing human rights abuses. Their slogan: "See it. Film it. Change it."

Vancouver Film School students created an inspiring video, "Iran, A Nation of Bloggers", and put it online months before the tech-fueled protests over Iran's disputed 2009 election.

President Caught on Video: "Get Lost, You A*#hole"

Then-President Sarkozy caught on video in 2008 calling a disgruntled citizen an "idiot" or "a**hole" or "stupid bastard" (depending on translation). French politicians are having difficulty tolerating the scrutiny from new more aggressive online media (including online video) -- especially compared to deferential coverage they're accustomed to from traditional media.

Our own former president was caught on tape.

Murder of 28-year-old sparks Egypt uprising

In June, 2010, Khaled Said was beaten to death by police in public for the crime of Internet use and, apparently, exposing police corruption. His martyrdom inspired protests and Internet organizing that led to the uprising six months later that ended the Mubarak dictatorship. Google exec and activist Wael Ghonim set up the powerful Facebook page "We Are All Khaled Said."

In Egypt, bloggers/Net activists laid groundwork for uprising

With the Mubarak dictatorship in control of all major media in Egypt, brave Egyptian "citizen journalists" risked imprisonment and torture to blog or tweet about human rights abuses. Here's renowned Egyptian blogger Wael Abbas interviewed on BBC. Over the years, Abbas was harassed, censored and assaulted by authorities -- and was briefly detained during the uprising early in 2011.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous covered the 18-day uprising last year for Democracy Now!, and he was the central character in an HBO documentary about the Egyptian revolution.

Local Nonprofit Watchdog News Sites

As dailies have shrunk, local online nonprofit news sites have sprouted, such as the well-funded VoiceofSanDiego.org and the professionally-staffed MinnPost.com ("a thoughtful approach to news").

2009 Izzy Award-Winners Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman

Soon after accepting their Izzy Awards in Ithaca, NY in March 2009, Greenwald and Goodman spoke about independent media on public TV's Bill Moyers' Journal.