This is from a web cam that other blogs found, streamed by a young Libyan named Muhammad Nabbous

Preserving a piece of US Maritime History - invaluable

The USS Olympia is a cruiser that fought in the Spanish American War in 1898 and has been preserved in Philadelphia. She's a one of a kind ship, a national historic monument, and in danger. She needs approximately $10-15 million in repairs to keep her a viable museum for years to come. If you have the resources, or connections to those resources, please consider helping. (full disclosure - there is no financial benefit to me to ask the question - we need to save this ship for posterity). Please contact me at 612-599-1935 or bdskon@fedex.com if you have additional questions.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

This is from a web cam that other blogs found, streamed by a young Libyan named Muhammad Nabbous

http://www.livestream.com/libya17feb

Muhammad Nabbous was killed as he was reporting on the war in Libya - and he was simply a citizen journalist.

From Information Dissemination and Gahlran who wrote this:

I do not know much about Muhammad Nabbous, or rather I only know him by watching his webcam broadcast over the last few days. He was an intelligent, very tech savvy young man who spoke English very well which made him very popular as he attempted to raise awareness in North America regarding the violence taking place in Libya, and specifically from Benghazi.

Muhammad's activities were particularly interesting to me. While at home in front of his webcam, we would take phone number requests from the thousands of people monitoring his web channel and reach out to loved ones on behalf of those overseas. All phone calls to Libya continue to be blocked by the government, but telecommunications works inside Libya, so to many hundreds Muhammad would function as a lifeline to connect families and provide status updates to those concerned outside Libya.

Muhammad would also conduct other activities as a citizen journalist, for example, last night while I was monitoring his channel there were around 20-30 explosions inside Benghazi. The young man connected one cell phone to his webcam, grabbed another cell phone and his camera, and drove around to various checkpoints to investigate the explosions while live streaming audio descriptions to those watching. He would hold the camera with one hand, drive with the other, hold the cell phone in his lap and describe all activities.

During these times media would often tune in and report through Twitter what was being said and done during this young mans live investigations. Once he would return home after his investigations, he would upload the video to the same channel and people could watch these investigations that would add video to the audio for more context to explain events unfolding in Benghazi. It really has been incredible to observe this citizen journalist in action inside a war zone, in particular a city under siege like Benghazi.

This morning Muhammad Nabbous was shot and killed during one of these investigations. The channel is always being viewed by thousands of people, and it is remarkable the outcry of inspiration and mourning taking place in chat this morning after his wife confirmed the young mans death.