Why I have serious doubts about the 'citizen reporters'

I find it astonishing - not to say macabre - that virtually the first thing a lay person would do after escaping injury in an explosion in which dozens of other human beings are killed or maimed is to film or photograph the scene and then relay it to a broadcasting organisation. A thought provoking article by John Naughton for The Guardian.

"Especially when one realises what was in this 'amateur' material. Some of the cameraphone video clips sent to ITV News, for example, were so graphic as to be 'unusable', according to the channel's editor. I haven't seen the clips, so can only imagine what they contained.

But I can guess: images of human beings blown to pieces, missing limbs, intestines, perhaps even heads - sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters whose privacy has been invaded in the most intrusive way, even as they lay dying.

I suppose there will be arguments about how this imagery and footage is justified because it conveys so vividly the horrors of which terrorists are capable. But I don't buy it, and I don't think broadcasting organisations should either."

Such arguments are merely a retrospective attempt to dignify the kind of ghoulish voyeurism that is enabled by modern communications technology."

emily | 10:15 AM | Citizens as Camera Phone Reporters |
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