Armed with a few Kodak Zi8 cameras, 6 HTC Wildfire mobile phones, energy, expertise in training citizen journalists, Small World News is working to share stories from Libya with the larger world.
Small World News is on the ground in Benghazi training Libyans to capture and tell video stories of events in this volatile region. Along the way, the team has also captured footage that no other main stream media outlet has been able to get. MobileActive.org chatted late last night with Brian Conley, founder of Small World News, to hear how things were going. What we learned is that capturing and sharing stories from Libya is as much about technology as it is about establishing trust and connections with the journalists on the ground.
Small World News and Alive.in
Small World News is a documentary and new media company that provides tools to journalists and citizens around the world to tell stories about their lives. We wrote about Small World News last when it helped an independent Afghan news agency integrate mobile phones and SMS into news reporting.
As part of its work in Libya, Small World News captures audio reports from individuals on the ground to broadcast to a larger international audience. It does this via Speak2Tweet, a collaborative project from Google, Twitter, and SayNow, which allows a caller to Tweet by calling a phone number and leaving a voicemail.
Conley and his team recognized the power of Speak2Tweet in circumventing downed Internet access, and knew it could be improved by translating the content to English to reach a wider audience. Right now in Libya, anyone can tweet by leaving a voicemail on an international phone number (+16504194196, +390662207294, and +442033184514) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #libya and #feb17.
Conley and his partner are also training people in Benghazi on how to content that will be posted on Alive.in/libya. The company has established many other Alive.in sites, including Alive.in/egypt, Alive.in/libya, Alive.in/bahrain and Alive.in/iraq. The sites are “driven by the pressing needs of democratic movements to communicate the reality of events actively denied by authoritarian governments and state-run media,” as Small World states.
Content for the sites comes from culling existing content from the Internet as well as from building a network of people, “with low bandwidth and high barriers to trust.” Small World News is now in Benghazi to do just that: to “build and train a team of local, young Libyans who want to produce video about what’s going on, and speak to the world,” says Conley.
What Small World News is doing in Benghazi
Originally, Conley and his team were just translating calls as they came in via Speak2Tweet, as well as trying to pull in relevant videos from the Internet to translate and subtitle them as needed. But the organization was able to secure funding for a trip to Libya and is now in Benghazi to train individual citizen reporters there. “We were invited by the Libyans to train locals to shoot video and produce their own news content,” Conley said.
Small World News arrived on Friday with several Kodak Zi8 cameras and 6 HTC Wildfire mobile phones. Finding Libyans who wanted to learn how to produce and share content was not a problem. “We had personal contacts, and built it from there,” Conley said.
In fact, they eventually found themselves with too many interested people. “We went from just scraping by and trying to figure out who we were going to train to suddenly almost having too many people to train,” Conley said. “We don’t have enough equipment for everyone.”
In once instance, a group of trainees came together almost by accident. Conley was working at the media center the team had set up there, and, faced with a logistical problem, called a personal contact. But the contact turned out to be a different individual with the same name. Conley introduced himself and explained his purpose in Benghazi. “We got to talking, and this person actually said that he and his friends wanted to do some video documentation about what is going on in Libya,” Conley said. “This was a real win, because it was a group of people who already knew each other, wanted to do this kind of work, and were looking for direction. It was a magical thing.”
Small World News has now a team of about a dozen men and women ranging in age from 16 to 30 years learning how to create video content.
The Goal: Build an Effective Conduit for Content
The goal, Conley said, is to build an effective and sustainable conduit for content produced by citizens about daily life in Libya that reaches a wider audience. Eventually, Small World News hopes to establish a local site, but for now, the content on the Alive.in/libya site is “aimed directly at the international community and by and large the Western audience.”
“Basically,” Conley said, “it’s a place to give Libyans a way to speak directly to the world.”
Small World News is also using Alive.in/libya to pull in social media sources and share local content. In the future, it will consider possibilities of how individuals can submit their own footage, either via a specific hashtag or by uploading to a public dropbox. “Once the Internet comes back, I think a lot more people will be posting their own content,” Conley said.
So how is Small World News able to push content out with such unreliable Internet and mobile connectivity in the area? Conley said, “You just need to know who to talk to.” Jokingly, he noted, “we were able to get on this connection by talking to somebody who knew somebody’s cousin.” Small World News also has a backup satellite option, which it hasn’t had to resort to yet.
Unique Footage from the Front Lines
Aside from training Libyans how to create video reports, Small World News has had an opportunity to capture unique footage from the eastern gate of Ajdabiyah. “Right now, we’re reaching out to media networks because we’re just now getting footage that we’re fairly certain that nobody else has,” Conley said. Watch several videos just posted on the Alive.in/libya site (scroll down).
The reason is that a lot of professional journalists are being prevented from getting to the front lines, Conley said. Locals are often able to get closer and capture raw footage. “A lot of media have left, and many more are on their way out right now,” Conley said. “We’re hearing that people will leave primarily because they can’t get any access and they are spending huge amounts of money to be there.”
This, of course, begs the question of safety. Of his travels into Benghazi last Friday, Conley said “it was totally safe.” He had no issues getting through and it was calm the entire time.
But, “the biggest issue is that there is a lot of confusion about who can be approved press. People are scared when they see Libyans shooting video because there is a lot of paranoia related to the possibility of pro-Gadaffi loyalists and infiltrators,” Conley said. “It’s certainly well-warranted, especially after the killing of an Al Jazeera journalist recently.”
Obviously, trust and stress have been issues. “Making sure that everyone feels comfortable, and figuring out how to make sure the opposition recognize that we are here to help and also that we have been invited,” Conley said. “It’s just a very fluid situation. While it’s more or less physically safe, there is a lot of tension in the air, a lot of stress,” he notes.
There have been technical challenges, too. For one, the account for the team’s satellite equipment had not been activated, and Conley found out that credit had never been applied to it. It took a few days to get it running, but when we chatted with him, the situation had been tested and was working.
Despite the inherent challenges in working from Libya, there have been significant successes for Small World News. Chiefly, it has posted a lot of video on the Alive.in/libya site - almost half a gigabyte. “We’ve been able to get 20 or 30 clips up,” Conley said, and some content is still being translated. The team relies on the same translators that helped with efforts in Egypt. (Read more about how they did it in Egypt.) Subtitles are being done using Universal Subtitles for now, especially as the Internet remains slow.
Mobile Technology
For communication purposes, mobiles “have not turned out to be particularly useful at this point,” Conley said. He and his partner originally brought 6 HTC Wildfire phones, but were not able to set 3 of them up. Text messaging is “totally disconnected” in the area, the networks have been “up and down” and there is no GPRS service. But people, especially journalists, have been using Nokia E72 and similar phones to capture footage.
Update: On Thursday, Conley reported that all mobile networks were down. Previously, they had a signal, but calls would not go through. Now, there is no signal at all.
Conley notes the important role mobile phones play in collecting and sharing video, especially over bluetooth. “That’s a prime way that we have been viewing videos from locals,” he said. “There is a big role for mobiles in media production and distribution, just not in terms of communication right now.” For now, on-the-ground communication seems best conducted person to person and via individual training.
Reports from the Frontline: How Small World News Trains Citizen Journalists and Captures Footage from Libya Locations
Armed with a few Kodak Zi8 cameras, 6 HTC Wildfire mobile phones, energy, expertise in training citizen journalists, Small World News is working to share stories from Libya with the larger world.
Small World News is on the ground in Benghazi training Libyans to capture and tell video stories of events in this volatile region. Along the way, the team has also captured footage that no other main stream media outlet has been able to get. MobileActive.org chatted late last night with Brian Conley, founder of Small World News, to hear how things were going. What we learned is that capturing and sharing stories from Libya is as much about technology as it is about establishing trust and connections with the journalists on the ground.
Small World News and Alive.in
Small World News is a documentary and new media company that provides tools to journalists and citizens around the world to tell stories about their lives. We wrote about Small World News last when it helped an independent Afghan news agency integrate mobile phones and SMS into news reporting.
As part of its work in Libya, Small World News captures audio reports from individuals on the ground to broadcast to a larger international audience. It does this via Speak2Tweet, a collaborative project from Google, Twitter, and SayNow, which allows a caller to Tweet by calling a phone number and leaving a voicemail.
Conley and his team recognized the power of Speak2Tweet in circumventing downed Internet access, and knew it could be improved by translating the content to English to reach a wider audience. Right now in Libya, anyone can tweet by leaving a voicemail on an international phone number (+16504194196, +390662207294, and +442033184514) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #libya and #feb17.
Conley and his partner are also training people in Benghazi on how to content that will be posted on Alive.in/libya. The company has established many other Alive.in sites, including Alive.in/egypt, Alive.in/libya, Alive.in/bahrain and Alive.in/iraq. The sites are “driven by the pressing needs of democratic movements to communicate the reality of events actively denied by authoritarian governments and state-run media,” as Small World states.
Content for the sites comes from culling existing content from the Internet as well as from building a network of people, “with low bandwidth and high barriers to trust.” Small World News is now in Benghazi to do just that: to “build and train a team of local, young Libyans who want to produce video about what’s going on, and speak to the world,” says Conley.
What Small World News is doing in Benghazi
Originally, Conley and his team were just translating calls as they came in via Speak2Tweet, as well as trying to pull in relevant videos from the Internet to translate and subtitle them as needed. But the organization was able to secure funding for a trip to Libya and is now in Benghazi to train individual citizen reporters there. “We were invited by the Libyans to train locals to shoot video and produce their own news content,” Conley said.
Small World News arrived on Friday with several Kodak Zi8 cameras and 6 HTC Wildfire mobile phones. Finding Libyans who wanted to learn how to produce and share content was not a problem. “We had personal contacts, and built it from there,” Conley said.
In fact, they eventually found themselves with too many interested people. “We went from just scraping by and trying to figure out who we were going to train to suddenly almost having too many people to train,” Conley said. “We don’t have enough equipment for everyone.”
In once instance, a group of trainees came together almost by accident. Conley was working at the media center the team had set up there, and, faced with a logistical problem, called a personal contact. But the contact turned out to be a different individual with the same name. Conley introduced himself and explained his purpose in Benghazi. “We got to talking, and this person actually said that he and his friends wanted to do some video documentation about what is going on in Libya,” Conley said. “This was a real win, because it was a group of people who already knew each other, wanted to do this kind of work, and were looking for direction. It was a magical thing.”
Small World News has now a team of about a dozen men and women ranging in age from 16 to 30 years learning how to create video content.
The Goal: Build an Effective Conduit for Content
The goal, Conley said, is to build an effective and sustainable conduit for content produced by citizens about daily life in Libya that reaches a wider audience. Eventually, Small World News hopes to establish a local site, but for now, the content on the Alive.in/libya site is “aimed directly at the international community and by and large the Western audience.”
“Basically,” Conley said, “it’s a place to give Libyans a way to speak directly to the world.”
Small World News is also using Alive.in/libya to pull in social media sources and share local content. In the future, it will consider possibilities of how individuals can submit their own footage, either via a specific hashtag or by uploading to a public dropbox. “Once the Internet comes back, I think a lot more people will be posting their own content,” Conley said.
So how is Small World News able to push content out with such unreliable Internet and mobile connectivity in the area? Conley said, “You just need to know who to talk to.” Jokingly, he noted, “we were able to get on this connection by talking to somebody who knew somebody’s cousin.” Small World News also has a backup satellite option, which it hasn’t had to resort to yet.
Unique Footage from the Front Lines
Aside from training Libyans how to create video reports, Small World News has had an opportunity to capture unique footage from the eastern gate of Ajdabiyah. “Right now, we’re reaching out to media networks because we’re just now getting footage that we’re fairly certain that nobody else has,” Conley said. Watch several videos just posted on the Alive.in/libya site (scroll down).
The reason is that a lot of professional journalists are being prevented from getting to the front lines, Conley said. Locals are often able to get closer and capture raw footage. “A lot of media have left, and many more are on their way out right now,” Conley said. “We’re hearing that people will leave primarily because they can’t get any access and they are spending huge amounts of money to be there.”
This, of course, begs the question of safety. Of his travels into Benghazi last Friday, Conley said “it was totally safe.” He had no issues getting through and it was calm the entire time.
But, “the biggest issue is that there is a lot of confusion about who can be approved press. People are scared when they see Libyans shooting video because there is a lot of paranoia related to the possibility of pro-Gadaffi loyalists and infiltrators,” Conley said. “It’s certainly well-warranted, especially after the killing of an Al Jazeera journalist recently.”
Obviously, trust and stress have been issues. “Making sure that everyone feels comfortable, and figuring out how to make sure the opposition recognize that we are here to help and also that we have been invited,” Conley said. “It’s just a very fluid situation. While it’s more or less physically safe, there is a lot of tension in the air, a lot of stress,” he notes.
There have been technical challenges, too. For one, the account for the team’s satellite equipment had not been activated, and Conley found out that credit had never been applied to it. It took a few days to get it running, but when we chatted with him, the situation had been tested and was working.
Despite the inherent challenges in working from Libya, there have been significant successes for Small World News. Chiefly, it has posted a lot of video on the Alive.in/libya site - almost half a gigabyte. “We’ve been able to get 20 or 30 clips up,” Conley said, and some content is still being translated. The team relies on the same translators that helped with efforts in Egypt. (Read more about how they did it in Egypt.) Subtitles are being done using Universal Subtitles for now, especially as the Internet remains slow.
Mobile Technology
For communication purposes, mobiles “have not turned out to be particularly useful at this point,” Conley said. He and his partner originally brought 6 HTC Wildfire phones, but were not able to set 3 of them up. Text messaging is “totally disconnected” in the area, the networks have been “up and down” and there is no GPRS service. But people, especially journalists, have been using Nokia E72 and similar phones to capture footage.
Update: On Thursday, Conley reported that all mobile networks were down. Previously, they had a signal, but calls would not go through. Now, there is no signal at all.
Conley notes the important role mobile phones play in collecting and sharing video, especially over bluetooth. “That’s a prime way that we have been viewing videos from locals,” he said. “There is a big role for mobiles in media production and distribution, just not in terms of communication right now.” For now, on-the-ground communication seems best conducted person to person and via individual training.
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