lovegeek Blog

This project was beginning at SBS just before I left. I got to see a bit of the rough footage, but the online effort has turned out amazing. Check it here.

I first came across Sophie McNiell’s work when I began working at SBS Online. This coincided with my obsession with SBS’s Wednesday night Current Affairs show, Dateline, and it’s host, George Negus. I will fill you in on my stalker tendencies later, but for now I want to talk about what other 20 somethings are doing with their time.

You can read Sophie’s bio here, but basically, she is a young journo who spends her time running around The Middle East producing quality foreign affairs stories. Her most recent being a piece on Facebook activists in Egypt, aired on July 2nd.

The blurb from the Dateline website reads:

Young democracy activists have flocked to the social networking site, to choreograph widespread protests against President Hosni Mubarrak’s 27-year rule.

It’s the perfect tool for them to voice their opinions, especially in a country that outlaws gatherings of more than five people. With the use of blog sites, Facebook and YouTube, their messages can now be projected globally.

“They were horrified by Facebook because it was something totally new that they could not control,” says Nadia, a key promoter of a recent day-long general strike in which three protestors were shot dead and 400 were jailed, including her.

You can watch the story online from here.

It’s a great story not only because it’s topical, but because McNiell’s youthful reporting inadvertently points the camera at the rest of Australia’s aging Foreign Correspondents. Not one, I don’t think, could have pulled of a story on young activists in Egypt using Facebook without coming across as out of touch, or at least calling it ‘The Facebook’.

So, I think she is kind of inspiring. As is her story. The idea that you can actually go to jail for starting a facebook group that is anti-government makes me feel kinda small league with my ’causes’ application…sigh.