The PR tour of South Ossetia

[video:youtube:FGAUhEFvbfo] There’s something quite bizarre about watching a truck load of journalists being ferried around a warzone by the people who are in large part responsible for the destruction. What can we possibly learn from such tightly controlled tours? Just how do the journalists ferret through debris to find a meaningful story? Many of the folk in this film might never have heard of South Ossetia until a week or two ago. I can’t help thinking aggregators like Global Voices are giving us more of an authentic on the ground perspective than the non-native speaking parachuted in brigade.