Danish newspaper, Information, profiled openDemocracy and its Danish representative (me) the other day. I would have linked to it earlier, except it was locked behind an archive barrier. This in itself was slightly ironic, seeing that I was talking about the importance of opening things up in the online news world, linking generously to other websites, and entering into dialogue with others. The title of the piece was "Set global news free".
One of Information's own bloggers, Henrik Føhns, picked up on the irony and the article has duly been set free. Hurray! One small battle won, now how do we get them to set all the others free too?!
It may seem crazy to tell a newspaper to open up its archives for the world to see (nah, not really anymore). Why put the thing online, if the only people allowed to see it are the ones who already get it delivered to their doorsteps? Now that my article has been liberated, I will email to my grandma, put a link to it in my blog, and spread it around to readers of their competitors' newspapers. Multiply that effect by hundreds of articles and thousands of readers every week, and you begin to have a publicity machine working for you while you sleep.
At the New Media Days conference in Copenhagen, I met a group of young Danish bloggers, who are trying to crack the mystery of why blogging hasn't really caught on in techno-rich Denmark. It would be silly to pretend there was only one reason, but surely the fact that Danish newspapers (and there are many) are so difficult to search and impossible to link to must be one of the factors.
If people were invited to blog in the way they are at the Washington Post (see the Technorati link on the right), or given archive-jumping powers like they are at the New York Times. The sparks in Danish blogging might eventually catch on. This would not only be a good thing for the newspaper business, but for national public debate, understanding and exchange in general.
You'd think a newspaper like Information which takes such a clear political line on many issues would be especially interested in fostering debate about the articles on its pages (their own super blogging website, signals that much). But with all the other info that exists online (even in Danish), it's unlikely to happen if they keep making people pay for the privilege.
