Mobiles help get news out of Burma

Unless you’ve been hiding from all news sources for the past few days, you’ll know that things are a little fragile in Burma at the moment. The quite highly respected monks are out protesting against the military dictatorship that is the government, and it’s like a tinderbox out there.

So, what has this got to do with mobiles? Here’s a snippet from Channel 4 News ‘Snowmail‘, written by veteran news presenter Jon Snow:

Continuously amazing pictures coming out of Burma, many courtesy of the myriad mobile phones that this otherwise desperately deprived population have managed to muster, others via an unusual route we’re exploring on the programme tonight. And rather as in eastern Europe, the power of those pictures flooding back into the country through every known electronic device is itself clearly bringing more and more people onto the streets.

So they’re not only rallying the population by mobiles, but footage from the ‘front line’ is also getting to the world’s media via mobile. We’ve all seen an increase in user-contributed mobile-generated content of major events here in the West, but it’s certainly something when you hear that in a country as stricken as Burma, they’re making every effort to get the word out using what little mobile technology they can get their hands on.