The situation in Iran grows ever tenser; there may now be a recount of sorts, though it's not clear whether they'll be any more interested in counting the actual votes than they did first time out. Furthermore, the regime is clamping down on foreign news reporting in an attempt to cut off the flow of disturbing images from the streets of Teheran and other large Iranian cities.
The MSM's coverage of recent events in Iran has been somewhat uneven, reflecting in part the lack of interest in news stories which can't easily be packaged or explained to viewers in under 20 seconds, as well as the aforementioned restrictions on reporting, which make it difficult for even the John Simpsons of this world to bring us the full picture on what's happening.
But to an extent it has also brought into sharp contrast the limitations of the mainstream media. Even the BBC which, despite its myriad shortcomings and much-documented biases, remains the best source of international news coverage (Sky News is a far better channel, but cannot match the BBC's breadth and depth of foreign correspondents around the world) has occasionally been shown up as slow and cumbersome compared to some elements of "new media". Bloggers like Andrew Sullivan have been must-reads in the past few days, providing rolling real-time news updates and analysis while the Beeb is busily editing TV news packages and ponderously double-checking every story before running with it.
And opposition protesters have been Twittering from the ground in Iran, a new development whose significance cannot be overstated. I've hitherto regarded Twitter as a waste of time - largely because I've finally reached the age where I cease to understand new technologies - but after this week, whatever happens, no-one can say that it is pointless. Indeed, the people at Twitter Central even postponed scheduled maintenance downtime yesterday so as not to cut off the flow of information from Teheran. The world is changing, 140 characters at a time.
It would not do to get too misty-eyed about Mir Houssein Mousavi, the opposition leader who most observers believe picked up the majority of the popular vote. He may be a "moderate" and a "reformer", but that's compared to Ahmadinejad, which is hardly setting the bar all that high. From reading some columnists you'd think he was the love child of Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel, but don't be fooled; Mousavi is a man of firm views on everything from terrorism to Iranian nuclear ambitions, and is no friend of the West.
But that's not really the point; if democracy is to mean anything, after all, it includes the rights of people to elect leaders we don't care for. Rather, we should take the opportunity to show solidarity with the ordinary people of Iran, who may just be seizing this "election" as the moment when they stood up and demanded the right to be heard. It's a rare moment when both right and left in the West can come together and find something to agree on - though needless to say the EU's statement recognising Ahmadinejad's "victory" was pathetic, and there are the usual suspects on the far left ("the counting was awesome") who would rather see the fanatics remain in power, since they're anti-American fanatics.
There's not a whole hell of a lot we can do, of course; and blogging about revolution from an armchair with a cold beer in your hand comes perilously close to being the very definition of narcissistic, hand-wringing circle-jerkdom. But those of you who are technically minded might consider setting up a proxy to allow Iranian bloggers to liveblog or tweet through the government's firewall. That would be a small but real contribution.
It would be nice to think that this might be the first generation of Iranians who actually had the chance to determine their own futures. It's hardly necessary, sadly, to add that the odds are very much against it.
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