The first experience of participating in a webinar through Zoom

Yesterday, I participated in "Duan Xiaoju丨Why Is Independent Record Important? The Roles and Dilemmas of Readers, Reporters and Media" organized by Duan Media.

It was my first time to attend a webinar with Zoom and it felt very special. Zoom is a user-friendly software for visually impaired users. The buttons such as "Join the event", "Raise your hand to ask a question", "Leave the event", etc. have text descriptions, and the screen reading software is easy to find. But there is one very special experience. When the guests are speaking, other participants will also express their opinions sentence by sentence. From time to time the discussion gets closer to the brink of a fight. And because I use screen-reading software, the guests are talking and the participants in the audience are typing and talking. Many times, when I listen to the guests, the screen-reading software will suddenly read out who and so who typed something. Since you and I are very frequent in the audience, sometimes I want to concentrate on listening to the guests, and it will be a little distracting.

I got some highlights from this event and would love to share with more people in the form of notes. Here is a brief list:

First, even though there are many independent journalists and independent recorders emerging in response to the narrowing of press freedom and the collapse of the media, they can never replace the media organizations. Taking the recent power outage incident in the northwest New Territories of Hong Kong as a beauty, after the collapse of "Apple", "Position", "Zhong", etc., reports on the cause of the power outage have almost disappeared in Hong Kong. Just imagine, if these media still existed, how could no one make investigative reports on the construction quality and bidding process of the power facility. The downfall of these media has indeed caused an irreparable deficiency in the public's right to know. And these roles cannot be replaced by independent journalists, at least for now;

Second, in mainland China, where the freedom of the press is much worse than that in Hong Kong, many amateurs play the role of independent recorders who record their surroundings. But they are under enormous pressure and need to face real danger. As a girl who recorded the closure of Shanghai city said, when she publishes the record, the situation will be like a kite with a broken string, which is beyond her control. If the record gets a huge number of readings, many people repost it, forming an influence, and many people will scramble to talk to her about their experiences. But on the other hand, some powerful departments are also likely to find her.

Third, even in the bad situation as mentioned above, many independent recorders in mainland China now have the "consciousness" that their articles will be deleted at any time. They will all find a way to back up their articles. For example, self-hosting a website, or publishing to a platform that is not censored. Ordinary readers will also preserve the content in various ways because of this "enlightenment". Some people even buy printers to print articles at home. From this point of view, nodes that spontaneously save content have also begun to appear in mainland China.

Fourth, independent journalists do not have the support of media organizations. Many things that must be done, such as fact-checking and reading reports from multiple parties, used to be done by colleagues, but now they must do all of them by themselves. The workload will be greatly increased than before. This is also a challenge under the new form. Some independent journalists are now seeking to form teams to support each other, hoping to face such challenges together. Some reporters also collaborate with editors. I also hope that they can slowly figure out a suitable development method.

The development of decentralized media must face many unprecedented challenges. After all this is very new. Fortunately, a group of people with a sense of mission are not afraid of hardships, and through exchanges and cooperation, they slowly find a way to go. As readers, or citizens who are concerned about the public’s right to know, they should take the initiative to find high-quality reports worthy of support, and support these independent reporters and recorders with a sense of mission.