YANGON - Myanmar's journalists will take to Twitter and Facebook in
their battle to beat press restrictions and deliver breaking news of Sunday's
by-elections that for many will be the biggest story of their careers.
The vote - the first contested by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi
and likely to propel her into parliament - is set to pose a host of challenges
for news editors from the country's long-censored media.
All private news publications are weekly, after the previous military
rulers nationalised dailies half a century ago and "everybody wants to be
a Monday paper this week", said Thiha Saw, editor of Open News, one of a
number of papers to have applied for permission to print a day after the
by-elections.
Those newspapers not shifting their print runs will rely on their
burgeoning social media pages to provide readers with up to date coverage.
"Our paper will be (published) after the election, so we will post
on Facebook and our Twitter account, so we will update all the news every hour
after the polling stations open," said Nyein Nyein Naing, executive editor
of 7Day News, one of the country's biggest weeklies with an estimated
readership of 1.5 million.
Until last year, prominent coverage of Suu Kyi - known here as
"The Lady" - was almost unheard of and people who spoke to reporters
were taking a real risk.
Front page pictures of the Nobel prize-winning opposition leader are
now commonplace, while coverage of some other previously taboo subjects is also
allowed after a new regime loosened censorship as part of wide-ranging reforms
that have taken observers by surprise.
Weeklies are still subject to pre-publication scrutiny that is
described by media rights organisations as among the world's most draconian,
but Nyein Nyein Naing told AFP newspapers were increasingly deciding not to
send sensitive stories to the censors.
"We are just trying to push our boundaries a little bit. We do
something one week and nothing happens, so we do more the next week," she
said, indicating the latest edition of the paper, which carried a front page
story about the controversial decision by authorities to postpone voting in
three constituencies in Kachin state due to ongoing ethnic unrest in the
northern region.
She said when it comes to breaking news online, editors publish what
they want.
"For the Facebook and Twitter, we don't think about censorship at
all, we just put everything that we have got."
She said 7Day News had become increasingly reliant on Facebook to reach
its readership.
A story posted on the 7Day page of the social media website about
electricity blackouts, an increasing problem during the summer months, had more
than a hundred comments and 165 shares in just two hours - no mean feat in a
country where only a fraction of the population has access to the Internet.
But while censors might not stop papers covering the election in real
time - the Internet itself could pose a challenge in a country beset by outages
during sensitive periods.
"We all are worried about the Internet connection. Not only me but
other journalists who are running their stories through the Internet,"
said Nyein Nyein Naing, adding that her reporter could not send pictures during
a recent Suu Kyi trip to the far north because the connection was down.
"I don't think that would be coincidentally," she said when
asked if the authorities were behind the outage.
Wai Phyo, editor in chief of Eleven Media, said he was also concerned
about the Internet connection but the organisation will also use its text
service to send news to subscribers' mobile phones on election night.
"We will use all possible ways to send out our information,"
he said.
"The main thing is the Internet connection on that day. We have
many difficulties. I want the Internet to be good."
But he said journalists' ability to report on the vote would be a test
of the poll.
"The world is watching. I think our press freedom to cover the
by-election will decide whether it is free and fair," he said.
Thiha Saw, who will be busy compiling early results on Sunday night in
the run up to his midnight print deadline, said he had already written the Open
News election supplement cover.
"There will be the picture of the Lady - we have got hundreds of
them - and the title will be 'The Lady wins'!" he said with obvious
relish.
AFP
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