By Jan Oberg, TFF director

We are proud to launch TNN, the TFF News Navigator.

The Internet permits us to develop a global rather than national focus, to reduce the Western biases of a handful of media conglomerates and to say "no thanks" to standardized and simplified "truths" about matters complicated.

TFF's News Navigator is your tool - a uniquely comprehensive collection of more than 350 links to world news and comments: newspapers, info services, (mega)sites and bureaus as well as magazines of culture, security, alternative economics, media research - and news departments of major international organizations.

It gives you access to Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, Hindu and many other sources and perspectives on what happens. TNN is remarkably broad but not so big that you get lost - with all links on one page.

There are other meta sites with news. But TNN is unique because of its:

- choice and combination of alternative & mainstream sources,
- simple but careful layout and choice of colours making it easy to navigate,
- easy-to-browse categories and quick access,
- inclusion of sources you see nowhere else,
- inclusion of other meta sites.

We at TFF have sometimes criticized the media. TNN is our constructive contribution, a gift from us to any media person - and everybody else - who cares about improving the ways global affairs are conveyed to citizens.

Those who have tested it for us think it is an event on the Net.

While you will find the mainstream media here, you will also find many alternative. We've set it up to help you reach many original sources and media in any region where things are happening.

Your breakfast paper or the tabloid on the train has its local, domestic and foreign pages. It offers no global aspects, and its foreign page is almost identical with those of other newspapers in your country because it subscribes to the same few (Western) news bureaus. Fortunately the real world is not so repetitive.

With TNN you stop being out of touch with a world that moves toward globalization with so many views, cultures and arguments different from the ones you saw this morning...

Pluralism in news and commentary is a precondition of democracy, of grabbing a new freedom to challenge the powers that be. Your mainstream news sources will not give adequate coverage (perhaps no coverage at all) to politically less correct - or non-profitable - news and interpretations, no matter how objectively important they may be for millions or for our global future.

TNN enables you to become your own editor, to shape your personal views. When you have used it for some time, you'll ask yourself: why did the media I used to watch never tell me that?

The information society is characterized by an increasing mix of actual news, propaganda, entertainment and - concealment. This is why we have also included a box with links to media research. TNN is your reality check, your best option if you - like most - can't go to the spot where news happens.

What we are saying is: Don't trust the opinion or coverage of a few media. You could well be fooled. There are also positive news, the world is not grey or black, there are many colours - and lighter colours that offer hope.

Globalization - and the Internet - are rapidly revolutionizing the way we understand the world. We must become eclectic news gatherers and fight the trend toward uniform greyness, standardization and monopolization of our rights to know. We must win instead the freedom to dialogue, interprete - and take action for change.

TNN is free and it is only on TFF - a Gandhi-inspired shoestring outfit serving both democracy and peace.

Just go to http://www.transnational.org and look for the symbolic searching lights in the dark...

• • •

PressInfo # 102 will analyze the changed conflict formation in the Balkans.   

© TFF 2000

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