Zeyad’s independent Iraqi news service

Jeff Jarvis writes about Zeyad, an Iraqi blogger:

Thanks to the Internet and weblogs — and a little help from the community there — it is possible for one man in a country just coming out from under dictatorship and war to speak to the world, to exercise free speech, to help spread that free speech, to report news, to make news, to build relationships, to create understanding. That is the moral of the story of the blogosphere: All that is now possible. Anyone can do this. Any of us can support it. All it takes is one person.

Jeff helped Zeyad get started back in October and is rightly proud. Here is Zeyad’s site and here’s his post about yesterday’s anti-terrorism demonstrations.

— warning —

Ok, stop here if you don’t want to see me rant again about corporate media versus real blogging.

–end warning–

(For context, folks in places like Davos wonder can “Mainstream Media Co-opt Blogs?” More optimistically, some bloggers like Jarvis think corporate media can incorporate blogging. I disagree: the New York Times can’t blog.)

Zeyad’s blog offers a prime example of things corporate media can not do. It can’t pursue absurd dreams. It can’t get other people excited and linking in. It rarely strays from the rest of the corporate pack. It can’t speak with sustained passion. It can’t converse and it can’t pay people to converse.

Corporate media ain’t human. It is a machine, a legalism. It’s an it.

Blogging is not a technology — blogging is the brainstorming human spirit, unadulterated by corporate filters and armor, linking to kindred spirits. Corporate media can’t do that.