Press here for freedom?

China has tightened its control on the foreign journalist.  Banning them from a shopping centre in Beijing that was mentioned in a blog about peaceful protests.  The interesting thing for the ruling Chinese Communist Party to comprehend is just who is a journalist these days?

In times past you could always spot a journalist, they were lugging a great big tape recorder or had a camera crew with them or were desperate to find a working phone booth to file their story back to the newspaper.

Now everyone with a smart phone is a journalist.  With a phone you can take high res photos, HD movies, record good quality sound and be a first hand witness to any event however momentous however banal. You do not need a phone booth just an internet connection to file a story.  I think that the Chinese authorities will face the same inability to 'control' the media, as Hosni Mubarak or Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Why? Because everybody is carrying the 'media' around in their pocket right now.