Peter Griffin | Photo: Ami Mishra
Manipal: Peter Griffin is a Communication consultant, travel writer and a columnist. He blogs at Zigzackly, the World Wide Help Group of blogs and a large number of other blogs including Caferati. During the Tsunami, he raised millions for the bereaved through his blogs. He was in Manipal for the Manipal Media Students’ Convention (MMSC-’08). He talked about ‘Blogging and Activism’ at the un-conference held on day one of MMSC. TMJ caught up with him at the Valley View lobby to know more about activism, causes and Manipal.
Q: What are the causes you believe in?
A: I work a lot for CRY. I write brochures and do content writing for them for free. I offer my expertise in the communication field to help support a cause. I also run the blog World Wide Help Group to create awareness among people about natural disasters. Women walking in a mini skirt being looked upon as a stigma while men walking bare-chest in shorts being perfectly acceptable, the girl child still having to suffer injustice from the society, where ironically, a girl being born is considered laxmi, is something that needs to be changed. Awareness must be spread about these issues.
Q: Could you tell us about the World Wide Help Group?
A: Ah! Yes, it started of as a group of blogs in the time of the Tsunami. Two of us maintained the blogs initially, gradually we got a bunch o volunteers from all over the world. Basically, we were pointing out aid efforts from all over. We observed the urge or want for doing something about the Tsunami, but the lack of a proper channel. Many of our journalist friends gave us hands on information, for instance, don’t send clothes, send food and various things like that. The blog was visited a million times in eight days. There was good media coverage, the blog was recommended by BBC. Hence we were able to help a fair amount of people.
Q: What do you think is more important when you first hear of a cause, action or reaction?
A: What do you mean by action? We will have to define what the action is. Going out there and doing something may not always be the answer. Yesterday, at the un-conference as well, this discussion was quite heated up. But, sometimes spreading awareness is more important to deal with a cause. The result may not be immediate, but there will be a change in attitude in the near future. That is important. A change in perspective needs to be sought. One can simply write and educate other people and help a cause.
Q: What is your take on inflammatory content on blogs?
A: It’s there. So, logically it is up to you to decide whether you want to be affected by it or not. Why should words that someone says affect and enrage me? As long as somebody is not physically causing damage, who am I harming? It is about the usage of the tools and media available, a knife can be used to save a life and to kill someone, and the knife in itself is not evil or good.
Q: When did you get the driving force involve yourself with social work and activism?
A: I am not into social work exactly. I use my expertise in the various field of communication to help causes. My first memory of being interested in a cause traces back to my childhood where I saw an add in a newspaper where a tiny blank corner was marked, and the caption was to save it for one might need the piece later, that brought about some conservationist side to me. Then, at college, we had a social work society. Many of my friends were a part of it and they said it was a fun group. Even I joined it to have fun and I wanted to have fun. But, we were doing things like- in the Diwali Vacations, we would go out and help out in villages, build a school, and lay the foundation for roads, help the handicapped, projects and things like this. We created awareness within college for blood donation drives and activities like that, so that got me interested in advertising, which later became an important part of my career. It was beyond simply throwing money at something and saying that I have helped.
Q: How was your experience at MMSC?
A: It was good. But I thought instead of awarding people for their presentations, I thought awards could be given for the coverage of the entire program, like blogging about it, making a video coverage of the entire event. This could have been a grading assignment for the students.
Q: Was this your first time in this part of the country? How was the experience?
A: Well I have been to Mangalore before for a little while. But this was my first time here in Manipal. We came thinking we would stay on campus somewhere, but we were brought here to a hotel in a comfortable room, air-conditioned (sounding happy). We were quite impressed. We didn’t have the time to explore Manipal much but whatever we saw was good and impressive.
Q: Would you come back to Manipal for MMSC next year?
A: Yes, of course. MMSC was a good approach to blogging and the World Wide Web.
Q: About your personal and unique style statement?
A: What? I just like long hair.
The un-conference didn’t exactly start at the right note, but when the long and curly haired Peter Griffin took over as the moderator, the un-conference turned out to be a huge success.
Sub-edited by Sara Mohd Siddiqui
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