August 5, 2005
Ethics issue for citizen snappers
Kyle MacRae, whose agency Scoopt represents mobile snappers so they get paid for their work, said there are serious ethical issues at stake when it comes to snaps taken by amateurs who witness events before they hit the headlines, reports BBC News.
"The real issue here is an ethical issue if a bomb goes off and someone stops and takes a picture instead of helping," Mr MacRae explained.
With more citizen reporters capturing valuable images and getting paid for it, there was a concern that authenticity of images could be an issue. "At one level, I think people will probably try to hoax us, but we have to use common sense there. People may quite possibly stage events which we have to be wary of," he said. Scoopt has an expert on board who can closely examine images to ensure no digital tampering has gone on.
However, MacRae added that "citizen journalism has the potential to change what we think of as newsworthy events. A lot does not get reported because they have not been photographed."
Mr MacRae also thinks there is a lot of potential for people to make the news where they live, and to report events in their local areas much more effectively.
When a registered member sends in a picture to Scoopt - via MMS, via the website, or via e-mail - they are given a three-month exclusive licence.
Scoopt accepts mobile video too, but technical restrictions make it more difficult to send.
MMS has its drawbacks. The image may be taken on a high-quality megapixel cameraphone lens, but in the transfer process via GPRS, the image suffers. Scoopt advises people not to delete the original pictures from their cameraphones once sent, so that the higher quality original can be retrieved.
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