I've always been frustrated with the lack of media attention given to something as important as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). So I was happy to see an article in the International Herald Tribune (IHT) this week about PrepCom III of WSIS. It actually references WSIS, unlike other articles - like one about Internet Governance in the Economist. I remember at WSIS Geneva, seeing the plenary flash up on CNN for a few minutes.

Apart from the above, and a few articles on http://news.bbc.co.uk, I can't remember ever seeing WSIS in the mainstream media.

I'm here again, at the internet cafe of the Palais des Nations in Geneva for the third PrepCom of WSIS Phase II. It's as technical and 'boring' as ever, but yesterday apparently there was some excitement with the Chinese delegation stopping Human Rights in China (HRIC) from being accredited to WSIS. As the UK is in a pivotal position being the current European Union Presidency country, I had quite a lot of interesting feedback from the UK delegation about the debate that ensued. Very interesting, and in the end HRIC wasn't accredited - perhaps due to the weakness of the UN system (?).

Geneva is as lovely as ever, and I can't seem to get another of the city; as strange as it is.

I just ran into Abdallah Diwan in the corridor which was great - it's been soooooo long since I saw him (WSIS Geneva in fact).

Why are all of the so-called 'featured' TIG blogs all TIG directors or staff? What happened to an open and equal community?

The front page of the Sunday Express today claims that the Arabic news channel, Al-Jazeera should be banned in the UK for broadcasting videos of the London suicide bombers, under the headline 'TV Channel of Hate Must be Banned'. What utter nonsense. Firstly, every other news network worth it's salt has re-broadcast the same video, including the BBC and CNN; you don't hear anyone complaining about them. Secondly, Jazeera doesn't broadcast these videos in solidarity or support with the terrorists. The biased media outlets in the UK are a waste of space, time & money, and they should get a grip of themselves.

Many people choose their newspapers in the UK based on that paper's stance on certain issues. That's fair enough, but what happened to the balanced, fair argument. It has been replaced by left-ist or right-ist newspapers who claim to be the only authority on such an issue. I personally read The Times, the most well established of all the British newspapers, and I find it to present balanced, usually un-biased views on a story. Another mainstream newspaper, The Guardian, choice of hippies, concrete left-ists and other types, without failure takes a critical, biased view on the issues it reports on. Most readers of The Guardian choose not to read anything else so they can be cocooned in their idealism and ignorance (really sorry to my friends who read it).

I thought the idea of journalism was to set the facts and let the reader make up his/her mind about whatever he/she reads. Newspapers on both sides of the divide, The Guardian on the left and the Express on the right seek only to patronisingly alter public opinion. Come on and grow up.