Participative news blogs, a new Chilean voice · Global Voices
Rosario Lizana

Chile’s first participative news blog, “El Morrocotudo”, was born last week in the northern city of Arica. The newly launched blog has already attracted 200 registrations from all over Chile.  The focus of interest spreads from local concerns in Arica to national Chilean and international issues.
The project has been promoted by students of Senator Fernando Flores, who has been actively promoting blogging as part of his lectures at Tarapacá University. Some of these students are also part of this university’s innovative Entrepreneur Center, created in 2001.
Over the last 15 years since the restrictive period of military government (1973-1990), journalists have been able to develop their profession in increasingly autonomous ways. Changing journalism practices however move within an ambiguous terrain. Mauricio Hoffman, a well-known television news presenter, recently had to close his blog after a misunderstanding regarding his personal analysis of media, which in turn triggered a public controversy about blogs and identity.
On the other hand, almost the 90% of the newspaper market is owned by just two large enterprises: Copesa (publishers of “La tercera”, “La Hora”, “La Cuarta”, “Siete mas siete”) and El Mercurio (with “El Mercurio”, “Las Ultimas Noticias” and “La Segunda”). This situation was enough motivation for a group of active journalists to launch a blog to discuss subjects that the existing media would not publish.
At present, of the press market, El Mercurio, has its only one RSS system in its editorial content - for the youth-oriented magazine, “Zona de Contacto”. From Copesa, there are blogs for the sports section of “La Tercera” and the top selling newspaper “La Cuarta”, however neither critical issues.
Another news blog, “Lanalhue Noticias”, produced by interested local people appeared recently in Cañete, a very small city over 2,000 miles to the south of Arica; however unlike “El Morrocotudo”, the public can only comment upon articles, not submit them.
The new Chilean grass-roots blogs “El Morrocotudo” and “Lanalhue Noticias” have been launched to offer news in different participative ways and to provide other alternatives that allow ordinary people to participate in the debates of national issues.