Reporting on line: the Internet and terrorism

For more than a decade Eelam House, LTTE’s London based press office has operated the heavily text based www.eelam.com. The site contains LTTE press releases from 1985 and other publications supporting the Tamil claim for separate homeland.

Of the many pro-tiger web pages www.tamilcandian.com is the most comprehensive database of pro-LTTE literature available on the internet (Canadian Intelligence report, 2001), and reflects the tigers heavily reliance on expatriate communities for their fund raising activities which link regional specific expatriate sites which contain information on sporting activities, social events, and even immigration regulations.

The news coverage in the pro-eelam network is both regular and prolific, resembling a conventional news agency more than a sectional political site. www.tamilnet.com operated form America with a front base in Norway offers daily news updates from Sri Lanka, and since 1997 it has been the largest web based Tamil news source. While www.tamilguardian.com the pro-eelam news paper distributes from three distinct geographic locations Toronto Canada for a North American audience, Victoria Australia for Australasia and London UK for Europe. The newspaper is available on-line on pdf format.

The Internet is atomising influence in international communications. The metropolitan centred news systems must now compete with locally produced globally distributed information. The primary difference between the two products may be credibility.

The Internet provides journalists with unprecedented variety and depth of sources. Yet it already allows their intended audiences to check journalists’ interpretation against the original. New technology allows journalists to communicate immediately with home bases, transmitting stories over great distance via satellite or landlines. Increased speed of delivery can be expected to allow reporters less time for reflection.

Meanwhile, their subsequent reports can be quickly distributed back to the sources, beyond western journalists’ traditional metropolitan audiences. This will allow media critics to immediately interact on what they consider misreporting.

Terrorists are already developing their own news networks, deploying sophisticated multi media techniques, which match and sometimes surpass mainstream media.

The traditional values of accuracy and speed will become even more important for mainstream reporters competing with these partisan voices on the Internet.