By David Beers

Published February 15, 2010 04:01 pm |

An article appearing in today's issue of 24 Hours Vancouver garbled what I had to say about social media and protesters, giving the impression that I had knowledge the Media Coop is acting as a command and control centre for anarchist protests. In fact, I have no such knowledge and did not say I did.

The mistake happened during editing, people at 24 Hours say. The result is this mistaken paraphrase of my views:

"David Beers, editor of the TheTyee.ca, said contributors to vancouver.mediacoop.ca have set up something similar to satellite-based communication system used by military."

Actually, I was speaking in general about social media – texting and twitter and other means of sharing digital information via the Net – and the power it gives anyone wanting to organize a protest. But that was well after the reporter and I had finished discussing the Media Coop.

Earlier in the interview I was asked what I knew about the Media Coop and I answered that I knew very little, but saw it as a place where journalistic practices were employed with the aim of advancing social causes.

I would not want to give the impression that the Media Coop people are helping to orchestrate protests. I don't have any reason to believe that.