Scott Andrew pointed out that the web was silent on the terrorist attack in Bali. That’s true, but the Irish media have had plenty of reports about it. A quick search on daypop shows 91 weblogs mentioned the attacks. (this number is only accurate today due to the way daypop works!)
My own piece on the attack comes in on the 3rd page where I stopped scanning.
The web and especially weblogs are US-centric. Sure, there are weblogs written by people all over the world but we’re a minority I feel. Get used to it, if it didn’t happen in the States then it didn’t happen and it probably won’t get widely reported and commented on. That’s one thing that frightens me about the influence weblogs have over Google, that bias will exist.
On the other hand, the sniper shootings in Washington have received scant attention from webloggers while it makes headlines here in Ireland and talk shows devote air-time discussing it. No matter how we feel weblogs have supplanted journalism for reporting news, if it doesn’t interest us or motivate us enough we won’t talk about it. The same occurs in any volunteer effort and is perfectly normal. (see the open source world for this -> google for “itch a scratch”)
For all European readers, imagine a bomb going off in Ibiza.. That’s what Bali was to Australians. You have my condolances. I hope they track down those murderers.