In Pakistan and Sri Lanka – journalists and editors who get on the wrong sides of either the authorities or armed opposition groups, are routinely threatened and often killed. So why do they take the risk?
“Well I’m a blogger, and I write because it’s natural, and I can’t not” says Jaffna based lawyer and 
blogger Guruparan Kumaravadivel. He knows full well the risks run by journalists addicted to the truth. He worked for in the defence team of the journalist Jayaprakash Tissainayagam who won the 2010 Foreign Reporter of the Year for the British Press Awards, but who’s just been sentenced to 20 years in prison for writing stories the authorities didn’t want known.
If Sri Lanka is a country that’s known to be tough on its best journalists, then so is Pakistan - listed a couple of years ago by Reporters Without Borders to be the second deadliest place in the world to be a journalist, coming just after Iraq.
Lahore based writer Asif Akhtar has a popular Pakistani blog where his irreverent style pokes fun at people we normally wouldn’t want to be caught poking public fun at – including the authorities and the Taliban. He feels that though the mainstream media has learnt to self censor, the Pakistani blogosphere can afford to be more cutting edge.
South Asia Wired got these two bloggers on the line talking to each other about the similar kinds of problems that journalists faced in their respective countries.
Dheera Sujan talks with Asif Akhtar and Guruparan Kumaravidivel about the threat to media in Pakistan and Sri Lanka: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
