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chinese_blogger.jpgBoth the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal finally covered Microsoft’s shutdown of Chinese blogger Zhao Jing, aka Michael Anti.
Clearly, both papers have followed the story in blogs, but were loathe to credit bloggers as news sources.
Blogs have been debating the situation for months, but the two papers of record issued their stories because Brooke Richardson, MSN’s lead product manager, confirmed and defended the company’s action in an official company statement yesterday. Most mainstream media has since picked up the story.
The Times noted that bloggers have been discussing the issue, quoting Microsoft’s Robert Scoble. The Journal ignored bloggers in its story, although it noted that “Many Chinese bloggers say it is difficult to find a reliable blog server host overseas because a bad post by another blogger using the same system can cause the government to block access to the entire server.”
Both papers quoted CNN-anchor-turned-blogger Rebecca MacKinnon, identiying her as a research fellow at Harvard, rather than as a blogger.
The controversy began in earnest in June when the Chinese government instructed all Chinese bloggers to register.
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