Seen it, shot it, sold it

Another thought provoking article on Scoopt, the first photo agency set up "specifically and exclusively for citizen journalists" from The Guardian, where Roy Greenslade asks "Is this ethical journalism?".

Following the London bombings, "suddenly, everyone was talking about "citizen journalists", arguing that the uncommercialised net, free from elite professional control and vested interests, offered an unrivalled way of people both transmitting and receiving the unvarnished truth.

It is not as simple as that, of course. The detached journalistic professional is still necessary, whether to add all-important context to explain the blogs and the thousands of images, or simply to edit the material so that readers and viewers can speedily absorb what has happened. There are other important considerations, too, not least resolving knotty contradictions between freedom and commercialism, and between citizenship and consumerism."

... What all this suggests is that despite the net providing people with a revolutionary way of becoming journalists, it does not answer the central dilemma of journalism itself: what is it for? Democratisation has burgeoned alongside the "free" market economy that encourages people to believe that everything, including information, has a price. Is that really so great an advance?"

emily | 11:39 AM | Citizens as Camera Phone Reporters |
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