Hurricane Victims, a.k.a. Amateur Journalists

Steve Outing has an incredibly thorough article entitled Hurricane Victims, a.k.a. Amateur Journalists , on citizens covering the storm, thanks to picture phones and how "news organizations have started to "get wise to this growing army of citizen camera- and phone-toting photojournalists".

"Hurricane Isabel was a prime news story to put the public photos notion to work and request that the public send in photos and first-person text accounts of their hurricane experiences.

As Hurricane Isabel rips through the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and leaves countless victims in its wake, an army of writers and photojournalists are covering the storm's impact -- far greater in numbers than have ever covered a hurricane before.

[...] a growing number of citizens -- often, victims of the storm's wrath -- are serving as volunteer journalists for this major news story, their work being published by professional news organizations as a supplement to the reporting and photography of professional journalists".

Note from Emily: I've recently opened two new categories of this blog to track all news events covered by amateur photo-journalists (see "Citizen as Camera Phone Reporters") as well as incidents - which will soon become commonplace - where professional reporters send in photos taken with a camera phone (see Reporters and Picturephones).

emily | 6:21 PM | Citizens as Camera Phone Reporters |
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