And that is the challenge for the specialized press - to accompany the public in its discovery of the new medium and in its appropriation of cyberspace, help people to analyze, facilitate their understanding, add value to raw information."
Moreover, with the Internet, it is possible to read on-line titles which are difficult to find in newsstands, like the Algerian daily newspaper El Watan, on-line since October 1997. When interviewed by the French daily newspaper Le Monde of March 23, 1998, Redha Belkhat, chief editor, told: "For the Algerian diaspora, to find in a newsstand of London, New York, or Ottawa an issue of El Watan less than a week old is an achievement. Now the newspaper is here at 6 AM, and at noon it is on the Internet."
Forbidden newspapers can also continue on-line thanks to the Internet, such as the independent Algerian daily La Nation (The Nation). Because it was denouncing the violation of human rights in Algeria, it had to stop its activities in December 1996. One year later, a special issue was available on the site of Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders) for the first anniversary of its disappearance. Malti Djallan, who is at the origin of this Reporters sans frontières initiative, explained: "By putting La Nation on-line, our goal was to say: it no longer makes sense to censor the newspapers in Algeria, because thanks to the Internet people can retrieve the articles, print them, and spread them out around."
Nouvelles du bled (News of the Village) is an electronic newspaper created in
December 1997 by Christian Debraisne, who is French, and Mohamed Zaoui, an
Algerian journalist in exile. The team includes about twelve persons who meet on
Thursday evenings in a Parisian café. When interviewed in Le Monde of March 23,
1998, Christian Debraisne, who is responsible for the composition, explained:
"With the Internet, we found a space for free expression and, as a bonus, there were no printing and distribution problems. I get all the articles and I put them on-line during the night from my house."
The press review is prepared using the newspapers of Algiers, Algeria. In the same article, Mohamed Zaoui explained:
"The editorial staff of El Watan, for example, sends us articles which cannot be published there. It is a way to confound censorship. I wanted to be useful and I thought that my role as a journalist was to seize the opportunity the Internet was offering to air opinions other than the Algerian government's and the fundamentalists'."
The press now has to confront all the Internet's resources:
- instant access to many information servers;
- speed in information dissemination;