CBS Launches Citizen Journalism Site For Mobile

CBS News has quietly launched CBS imobile, a citizen journalism site, where users can upload photos and videos directly from their mobile phone, for everyone to see.

[via mocoNews.net]

Mobile Junk 20

Beginning today, VH1 Mobile will offer "Mobile Junk 20," a new mobile application that gives users the ability to upload video and photos taken with their mobile devices.

Sprint is the first carrier to offer the application and Sprint customers can download the application via their phones, at www.sprint.com/digitalloungeor by texting "junk" to short code 2323.

Content submitted using the new application will be considered for inclusion in future episodes of the TV show "Web Junk 20."

Web Junk 20 is a 2006 program in which VH1 and iFilm collaborate to highlight the twenty funniest and most interesting clips collected from the Internet that week.

[Press release]

Police: Amateur videos often incomplete, unfair

A thoughtful piece by the AP on how a tiny part of an event - shot on film - can't tell the whole story and cites the resent examples of police brutality (UCLA student tasered by police) taped by citizens armed with cameraphones - but do serve to keep the police on it's toes.

"Amateur videos of police using force on suspects have sparked varying degrees of outrage from California to Philadelphia and Europe after onlookers captured incidents on cheap cameras or video cell phones and posted footage on the Internet.

Some law enforcement officials worry about the effect, arguing that footage notable leaves out what happened before the tapping. They also fear widespread exposure of such video clips might give officers pause in the future, even when force is justified, and that could put people in danger.

... Civil rights attorney Connie Rice acknowledges the images may "polarize and politicize police investigations," but she said they also force the LAPD to look inward. "Without them, there is no pressure at all for police to examine use of force, and they are not policing themselves," said Rice, who was appointed by the Police Commission to examine the LAPD's response to allegations of officer abuse. "

Image from truthdig.

The word: Sousveillance

New scientist reports on sousveillance.

"... Sousveillance is a French play on the word surveillance. Literally, it means "watching from below", while all those surveillance cameras in shopping centres and railway stations watch you from above. Sousveillance is the democratic version of the surveillance culture: the watched are turning cameras on the watchers.

One of the first to use the term was Steve Mann, a professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada, and co-author of Cyborg.

Image left: Sousveillance as a situationist critique of surveillance. This wearable wireless webcam imitates surveillance cameras common in casinos and department stores. [via wikipedia]

Related:

-- Mobile Phone Sousveillance In Action Again

-- The Connected Camera Fights Back

VideoNewsCaster, a citizen journalist video broker

VideoNewsCaster.com is the latest agency offering to act as a gateway for citizen journalists, offering to broker any video clips which may contain interesting shots for news organizations to use. Though other agencies (listed below) accept videos along with camphone pictures, VideoNewsCaster is the first agency to position itself as a video broker.

Anyone with a video cell phone or camcorder that captures newsworthy video can submit the clip for free through www.videonewscaster.com, a Website with a growing database of over 500 local and national news organizations. [Press release]

Other such agencies:

-- Scoopt

-- SpyMedia

-- Cell Journalist

-- Splash News & Picture Agency

Mobile group in talks to create TV link for citizen journalists

Citizen journalism is poised to take a great leap into the mainstream media as the mobile phone network 3 pursues talks with ITN and Sky News about feeding clips produced by its customers on to television news bulletins, announces The Guardian.

"Clips from the public definitely add to the story," said a spokeswoman for Sky News. "The best you can get is TV footage that tells the story. The next best thing is citizen journalism where the cameras have not yet arrived or have not been. Some images are very, very powerful. Some of the images from inside the tunnels in the July 7 bombings, for instance, were very powerful."

The increasing use of the public as news gatherers will raise concerns about accuracy. It will be hard to verify clips from events that were not witnessed by others. Amateur photographers and camera operators have for years been claiming to have recorded the Loch Ness Monster and UFOs, and it will not be long before someone with a camera phone records such a sighting.

The rise of citizen journalism has called into question the future of traditional journalists and editors. Last month, however, the executive editor of Sky News wrote: "I happen to think there will still be a role for editors - not just to assess information, but also to prioritise and present it in a way which, as well as making the news understandable, also reinforces its importance and point. [This is] something an anything-goes citizen journalism blog can't do. Professional journalists will always need to decide if it's news or propaganda."

Picture all the news that's fit to upload

Since 3 launched See Me TV in October, it has had more than a million downloads a month, reports The Guardian.

"Now it is about to launch 24 Hours, claimed to be a "world first" service for would-be journalists that I have been testing. Its motto: "Break the news and spot celebs wherever you are and make money too."

... The point is that we are only at the start of what may turn out to be a grassroots revolution. It is rare for the average person to witness a major incident, but there will be hundreds of others there with cameraphones at the ready. As phones become more powerful and easier to use - so will photo-journalism improve."

Related: - See Me TV: the ultimate reality mobile TV channel

The rise of clip culture online

The popularity of the websites that allow people to share short video snippets is leading to the rise of a clip culture, according to internet law professor Michael Geist, reports the BBC - and it's spilling over from the Internet to cell phones.

... "The emergence of video sharing sites is yet another seemingly instant internet success story that has caught many by surprise.

The best of user-generated video today attracts large audiences and competes with anything being offered on the major networks.

... From a business perspective, media companies are being forced to grapple with the competitive threat of user-generated content and to determine how to address unauthorised sharing of their clips.

... Telecommunications companies and intransigent broadcasters face an even tougher choice, as their vision of an on-demand converged internet, must now compete with the clip culture.

This presents new challenges, since users are increasingly not satisfied with merely consuming content, but rather demand the ability to share and re-create it."

nanotv is requesting citizen video submissions

nanotv which offers video news bulletins by mobile phone twice a day over Swisscom's network, is requesting citizen video submissions, shot with digital cameras or cameraphones.

Related:

-- Online Agoravox will soon be showing cameraphone video clips submitted by citizen reporters

-- ABC requests citizen videos to enhance it's TV news program