Current Issue

What is a current issue? The daily Jakarta Post is the earliest (I knew) reported the National Bloggers’ Day. The daily Kontan published the event’s report yesterday. The daily Kompas wrote a page about blogging and the party today. Yet, my article (today, November 2) was turned down by the senior editor of Ohmy News as something “too old”.

I’ve read a T-shirt’s design wore in the bloggers’ party “No one cares about your blog”. I do think that people do care as long as it is something that they think is important.

Nobody wrote about the Indonesian bloggers meeting in OMNI so I do think it is still a current issue. Perhaps, my way of presenting it was wrong. I do not master how to write a feature. One of my articles that I sent to a mainstream media here was never published, and I overheard that the editor was confused where it would fit, Feature or Opinion.

It is so hard to work as a citizen reporter without the proper facilities. I’m glad that my writing about fighting the poverty can get published in Ohmy News. Then, I was already struggling with the problem of my new modem. I just bought it about three months ago through Telkom, so I could still ask for its replacement. As there were Lebaran holidays it was a long wait until I got back my modem. Before I had the chance to get it connected (glad that I did not connect it), the computer broke down. The electricity wire got struck by the thunder storm (one of the 480 thunderstorms on that afternoon, as stated by the BMG). So I’ve got to go to the Blogger Party without having a proper research. I printed out my invitation in my brother’s house just after I left my children in my parents’ house to go for the party.

My article reporting the National Bloggers’ Party for wikimu was commented by a reader as a very modest report. Although it is about my way of using the word Bapak (Mr) or Bapak Menteri, but I knew that it was also too plain….I wrote it in a restaurant borrowing a friend’s notebook.

After the Lebaran, my domestic assistant did not come back. So the proportion of handling the house chores are abundant. Without my personal computer I am paralyzed. While I usually can cut my sleeping hours to write, now I can do nothing…

Do I become addicted to the internet? Addicted to blogging? I hope not! I’ll always remember the articles about blogging that I read in OMNI, one from Claire George, and the other one from Nicolas van der Leek. I hope I can prepare myself to have a more balancing life in my relation with the internet.

I’m going to ease down…

The important thing is to deliver the content. And I do need to remember to make check and recheck before delivering it. I won’t change it to have instant sensational news.

I like the term citizen journalism as it gives me the feeling of being a citizen in the global world as well. It also gave me a chance to do things that I won’t have as a housewife. I won’t have the chance to visit Seoul on an invitation if it was not for the article I wrote about wikimu.com.

The term grassroots journalism is not really appealing for me. Why? Don’t know…, it is just that the word “citizen” gave a better direction as for “right and obligation”.

In the Bloggers’ party there were seats reserved for the press, but as it is a party without the presence of the president we were free to take pictures. Journalists or non journalists were all free to go to the front and take pictures.

I know now that I should put my blog under the term of bridge blogging. Let my current issues be something currently thought in my mind.

Hopefully my computer can be fixed soon, and I’ll be able to concentrate on writing my current thoughts in my blog. (He..he..he..this post is still written using another borrowed note book).