ET needs to know a little more of IT

The first headline in today’s Economic Times (New Delhi edition) screams, “WHO’S THE ENEMY. Terror attack sends blogs Paking.” The sub-editor would be rubbing his hands in glee at the ‘wonderful’ pun in the headline. And I reading the morning paper was experiencing twitchy fingers, eager to blog about this.

The story reads

…it’s still possible to get onto this site – but only by logging on through www.pkblogs.com, a site set up by Pakistani bloggers to get around the blog ban that their government had put in place after the Danish cartoons episode. In short, thanks to this new policy, a blog to help the victims of a possibly Pakistan-inspired attack can only be accessed through a Pakistani site!

Mark the word ‘only’ repeated twice. ET has been doing a decent job in decorating the pink paper with photos that I find suspiciously similar to results using Google Image Search; hence I assume that they know the five Ws and one H of the online world. Stating on the front page of the newspaper that pkblogs.com is the ‘only’ way to access the blocked blogs smacks of ignorance unexpected of the nation’s leading pink paper. There a tens more, and that is what a relative ignoramus like me is aware of. You can also use good old Google to good effect.

The venerable Indian Express (a prime source of primary fodder for the Indian news industry) lists a few websites that have been blocked at the behest of the Department of Telecom. The list according to the newspaper includes princesskimberly.blogspot.com. Which when I checked it up, was last updated on March 24, 2005 and has but two posts. The older post describes a Harry Potter movie and the latter has this headline, “Who has the most boring life ever? I do!” Funny na? This whole episode seems ridiculous and our overzealous and underprepared media is adding to the merriment. Enjoy!

Update: ibnlive.com also lists Princesskimberly.blogspot.com. Don’t these guys check the sites listed? Or is it that the person behind the ‘sinister’ Princesskimberly has changed the blog contents to evade trouble? Seems unlikely, as even the template used is the old blogspot one, hardly used nowadays. If this blog is indeed listed in the list that DoT sent out to the ISPs, it raises serious questions about the seriousness these guys in the government take their jobs. And also the counter checking that our scribes do before filing their stories? Or is it only a mere copy-paste job going on here?