Back in January, I wrote in this blog stating that my posts will be less frequent than usual. The reason is the amount of work responsibilities as well as the tasks I have in maintaining three other blogs, the Arabic version of Jordan Watch and my two environmental blogs.
In the past year I have put more effort in the Arabic blog. The main reason was that I felt the need is more to provide Arabic content, and the very effecient way in which many of my fellow Jordanians are blogging in English. This perspective has changed a little bit.
First, the emergence of many online news portals in Jordan in Arabic language has met a high percentage of the demand for independent and updated news and analysis by users. Sites like Ammon, Saraya, Balqa net and Maraya news are attracting thousands of Jordanians and Arabs on daily basis. Blogs are hardly able to compete as they are reflecting the views of individuals and are always vulnerable to the psychological, professional, social and even economic situations of bloggers.
On the other hand, the other audience that is interested in news and updates about Jordan is still facing troubles with the presence of only 2-3 online outlets with Jordan Times dominating and reflecting a much waterd-down official perspectives. Blogs have maintained their superiority as news sources from within. We have experienced a lot of negative cases when foreign reporters come to Jordan and spend one or two days and publish many nonsubstantiated materials and conclusions that make the most of the global media image about Jordan.
I have made a paradigm shift in my approach to rejuvinate my English blog and spend much less on the Arabic one in order to contribute to an area that stil need much efforts: reporting about Jordan from within, to the international audience.
As Jordanian bloggers have announced a bizarre initiative to blog about Jordan on March 12th 2008 (as if they blog about Afghanistan the other days!) I will be blogging about Jordan everyday, if my ability permits.
said:
from United States
Mr Batir
Your continued efforts to support the Jordanian blogosphere are always appreciated. You are one of the pioneers who have actually helped shift the general ideas regarding Jordan, socially, politically and culturally. We are all your students and in debt to your pioneering efforts.
Sadly, we're reading more about people's cats, lost cellphones and struggle with make up more than we see people focusing on Jordan. A quick search on Google will return few pages talking about "Nike Air Jordan" at a higher rank than just about anything genuine about Jordan with all it's 6 million citizens. There are a number of very good blogs that continuously continue to raise the tough issues regarding Jordan and we all owe them a debt of gratitude. But for the rest, maybe it's time we all embrace a day where we all stand in solidarity to blog about our country.
Frankly, I expected someone like you to be at the spearhead of such an effort, this is culmination of just about everything you ever struggled for, consider it an online demonstration, a peaceful, civilized march to have Jordan as the number one topic, if even for one day in the year.
It's sad to see foreigners, from all countries picking up attention in the subject when our own are discouraging and ridiculing the effort of so many. It's very easy to pull a "Valentine's day should be every day" or a "Mother's day is every day" but this is not a commercial occasion. This is a national effort to show our love and care for our own country.
Luckily, you will be writing about Jordan every day, which means that come March 12th, you will be writing about Jordan. So, thank you for your support