'We had 50 images within an hour'

Britain watched the story of the London bombings through mobile phone pictures and video clips, while America saw another 9/11. the Media Guardian reflects on a momentous day for journalism.

"It was a new kind of story. Not in the sense of what happened, which was thoroughly and depressingly as anticipated, but in the way it was reported and disseminated. The mobile phone photographers, the text messagers and the bloggers - a new advance guard of amateur reporters had the London bomb story in the can before the news crews got anywhere near the scene.

Emerging from inside the police cordon, ordinary tube travellers brought out dramatic footage that defined the media coverage, leading the evening TV news bulletins and staring out from the pages of the next day's newspapers.

Seasoned news executives talk of a "tipping point", a democratisation of the news process, the true birth of the "citizen reporter". The public assuming control of the newsgathering process to a hitherto unimagined degree.

But what about authenticity? How do recipients of unsolicited video clips and grainy camera phone pictures know where they have come from? Who will be first to be hoaxed? And what about issues of privacy? Imagine, for example, being one of those injured in the blast, when before tending to your wounds, a fellow passenger looms over your body to snap a close-up picture with his or her mobile phone. Here, MediaGuardian writers assess the implications of this new shift in the balance of media power.

Also: - London's citizen reporters prove their worth with their coverage of bombing

emily | 11:06 AM | Citizens as Camera Phone Reporters |
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