On citizen journalism v traditional media
Steve Yelvington, V.P. Morris Digital, founder of citizen news site Bluffton Today, USA said “If the press does nothing, participative journalism will still continue to thrive”. Bluffton Today started as a citizen journalism site and spread to a printed product which reached “a readership to the level of the 1970s within a year”. Yelvington also believes that the traditional press and citizen journalists should feed each other in a ‘virtuous circle’ for them both to succeed in the future.

On Freedom of Speech Amongst Bloggers
Ehab Elzeaky, Al Dustour spoke about the difficulties that bloggers have faced in Egypt in the past two years. He said that main obstacles facing blooggers in Egypt are: state pressures (authorities often deny stories despite video evidence on blogs), traditional newspapers undermining blogs (they denounce credibility of stories), lack of legal framework and lack of training.
He also pointed out that blogs can get away with things that traditional media can’t. He cited examples of coverage that appears on blogs but not in traditional media (such as on the Baha’I faith, gay women and seculars) and that of risky stories that were written about in print several days after he story broke on a blog.

Declan McCullagh of CNET also made the point that countries with the highest economic freedom, tend to have the highest press freedom.

For more on the speeches at the conference, click here

Source: 'New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension’ conference