THE HELPLESSNESS OF THE BLOGS: Bird’s Eye View uses the example of Uzbekistan’s media clampdown as a jumping-off point for discussing how blogs depend on Big Media for news.

That’s largely true now, of course, though — and Uzbekistan is actually a good example — email, etc. can allow news to get out even where reporting is silenced, as the post notes. And it’s also an illustration of why I’m so big on the idea of having lots of bloggers scattered around the world, preferably equipped with digital cameras so that they can send not only reports, but pictures and video. The more of that sort of thing we can draw on, the harder it will be for tyrants — or media organizations themselves — to black out coverage.