One of my favorite stories from the last year out of Tunisia is, in fact, the story itself: How impressively the journalism scene there has expanded since the January 14 revolution.

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By far the most impressive example is Tunisia-Live, the country's first English news site, founded after the revolution, by three impressive local journalists with American university degrees. In just a year's time, it's hard to understate how impressive the site's growth has been. Once a little-known website with few contributors, today's it's far and away the best comprehensive place to go to get all the news from Tunisia.

You could say that the website had "arrived" when major U.S. newspapers starting citing their reporting--at times with extensive quotations. (They now boast on their site that they have served as fixers for journalists from big names such as the New York Times, BBC, CNN, and countless others.) No anglophone journalist covering Tunisia and in their right mind wouldn't read them; I'm particularly fond of their "Who's Who" section--an incredibly useful resource for anyone trying to get a lay of the land from politics to human rights.

This isn't just a shout-out to fellow journalists though. The site is, I think, yet another indicator that we can be very hopeful about the new Tunisia that is emerging. Tunisia-Live is run by an incredibly young staff. (I met a few of their journalists in Tunis late last year and was surprised to realize I was older.) They are the same generation who stood in the streets and called for the former president to go. They are becoming a generation of Tunisians who are going to accept press freedom and balanced, professional journalism as the norm. I doubt they'll be willing to let anyone change the rules.

It's a self-re-inforcing cycle. Politicians in the new interim government and the constituent assembly now understand that talking to the press is something they've simply got to do. The largest party, Al-Nahda, has an incredibly sophisticated media wing, equipped with its own internal translation unit and journalist briefing materials for every occassion. Not surprisingly, a lot of their media reps are also quite youthful.

If you don't already, I recommend you follow the new Tunisia from its new generation of journalists, here: http://www.tunisia-live.net