Reuters and Yahoo! Enlist Camera Phones 94
eldavojohn writes "In a huge advancement of citizen journalism, Reuters and Yahoo! are asking average people to be journalists with their cell phones. I hope participants don't run the risks others have for photographing the police. You can expect to see these new photos being used at Yahoo! and Reuters.com starting tomorrow." From the article: "'People don't say, "I want to see user-generated content,"' said Lloyd Braun, who runs Yahoo's media group. 'They want to see Michael Richards in the club. If that happens to be from a cellphone, they are happy with a cellphone. If it's from a professional photographer, they are happy for that, too.' Users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites. But people whose photos or videos are selected for distribution to Reuters clients will receive a payment."
The BBC have been doing this for a while. (Score:5, Informative)
If you capture an unfolding event on camera or mobile phone, either as a photograph or video, then please send it to BBC News.
You can send pictures or video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or via mms by dialling +44 (0)7725 100100.
Please do not endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws.
That disclaimer is very important, the BBC does not want CNN reporters sending tapes from 2000 foot skydiving through a twister.
They also have a policy in place to pay people for certain images.
Re:The BBC have been doing this for a while. (Score:3, Informative)
Photos from a mobile phone these days with their 2MP or more cameras are probably reasonable enough for the sort of photos online news sites use with stories.
Re:The BBC have been doing this for a while. (Score:2)
not the first (Score:5, Funny)
I see they're taking FOX News' lead then. FOX has been asking average people to be journalists for years.
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Re:not the first (Score:1)
Re:not the first (Score:1)
I don't think so. What "news" will common people report? If it's the same common people that decide which TV program is successfull, by switching to a different channel if the current program requires at least some brain cells to follow, than the outcome and the quality of such news is nothing I'm looking forward to.
Besides that, there's another issue here: Turning away responsibility from the journalist/magazine/TV station to the common people. A german boulevard newspaper ("BILD") already publishes pictures taken by readers, rewarding them with very little money. That's a brilliant deal for the newspaper. Good paparazzi shots for little money and they can't get sued, because it wasn't them who shot the picture, but that little unknowing reader who contributed and now gets sued the hell out of him. And the newspaper just sits there and giggles about that.
Re:not the first (Score:2)
I found phone-photos from the Lebanese equivalant of "Joe Sixpack" (let alone aid workers, etc.) during the last Israeli conflict to be quite interesting.
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Many many years back in a small town in New Mexico, a third party presidential candidate was showing up as part of a whistle stop campaign. If I mentioned Which candidate it would date me
I was a young lad at the time and, though my father despised this candidate he, I, and most of the rest of the town went down to the train depot to see and hear. No other candidate was going to visit our hick town and other then watching the grass grow it was the only entertainment that day. The whole High School was let out for this occasion.
As we waited in the sun (New Mexico is hot in the summer), two charter busses pull up marked "CBS" on a stick on label on the sides. Out of one steps a at the time well known "journalist", film crew, support people (including make-up, the fellow was sweating, poor dear), and caterers who proceeded to set up a lunch for the Bus people. Out of the other bus stepped about 25 ragged dressed people with signs.
The second group arranged themselves on the track near the townspeople who stood wondering "What in the world...?".
Soon the train pulled in and the candidate walled out on the little platform on the back of the car and started to speak. The Charter bus cowed waved signs, shouted obscenities and screamed so loud he could not be heard. He ducked back into the train which immediately left town.
The crowd stood and shouted some more even after the train pulled out but with the cameras rolling. Then, properly primed and painted the reporter (who I happened to be standing near) starts describing to the camera the local riot when this candidate appeared. After his 5 minute over and over saying the same thing, all the news crew and their ready-made-riot all broke for lunch and gathered around the white tablecloths the caterers had set out.
Soon the whole lot of them packed up and headed down the highway following the train.
That was the day I lost all respect for any "news" I see on TV, and most I read. Internet has been a boon because common people may lie too, but not as well choreographed.
Re:not the first (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:not the first (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Re:not the first (Score:0, Offtopic)
Kinda like the Daily show but they think it's real
PenGun
Do What Now ???
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Absolute polarization is widespread these days in America: If you are at all critical of A, you are automatically labeled as a B-supporter, so they will automatically respond by attacking B.
Re:not the first (Score:1, Informative)
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Umm, no [wikipedia.org].
Re:not the first (Score:2)
Re:not the first (Score:2)
ROTFL. Fox is, at best, in a distant second place - as CNN was asking average people to send in photographs/video a decade before Fox even existed.
Re:not the first (Score:1)
Re:not the first (Score:1)
Re:not the first (Score:1)
The BBC (Score:1, Redundant)
Glad to see this happening (Score:4, Insightful)
Tornado sightings have worked this way forever. Bubba catches the twister on his video-recordin' machine, the local NBC affiliate pays him 100 bucks for the tape, and soon the whole country gets to see video of a funnel cloud snapping power lines a hundred yards away. CNN has recently been pushing a "Send, Share, See YOUR Stories on CNN" initiative, and now Yahoo and Reuters are jumping on the bandwagon. It's about time that the concept is catching on more broadly... I just hope it gets used for something more relevant than Britney flashing her hoo-ha.
Re:Glad to see this happening (Score:0)
Michael Richards is a bad example (Score:2)
Re:Michael Richards is a bad example (Score:0)
Re:Michael Richards is a bad example (Score:2)
Some poor sap... (Score:1)
Re:Some poor sap... (Score:0)
Fake Photos (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fake Photos (Score:2)
And a related worry: Did these Reuters people just give up on doing their own journalism? Do they do anything except copy AP stories?
Re:Fake Photos (Score:2)
Why not? It will make it easier to get pictures to go with their fake news [bostonherald.com].
ignorant corporate hacks (Score:5, Interesting)
So if the for-profit company that takes money from your effort is not paying people, why would ANYONE send them juicy information, the best and most timely photos? (Other than corporate spin and marketing...) These suits do not understand human motivation at all. While many community/corporate models do work well - they work when the people who contribute significantly get something significant back for their participation in the community.
Stop letting your creativity be yoked by the merchants.
The only possible reason for people to upload is an individul's desire for the story/photo to get out - which puts even more bias on the distorted, biased coporate news process. Now everyone is "fighting" for what news is real - in an arena where people will always lose to the larger corporate profit motive.
Why wouldn't you send it to groups like Indymedia [indymedia.org] or other groups, collectives and nonprofits that have ideals more in line with the interests of individuals? Why wouldn't you post it to your own flickr account, craigslist, or make a blog post about it yourself? All these tools are available to anyone who can get the API working to upload it to Reuters, and work more in the individual's interest.
We no longer need merchants to control creative expression.
CNN launched a 'thing' like this too a while back (iReport, video [youtube.com])and it was laughed off the airwaves. They wanted you to "be the reporter!" and not pay you for your effort - while the whole time they make money off the ads your reports support. If people have a great story - post the video online with a site that allows you to share revenue from traffic, and includes real rewards for creating the content to those people who really create it.
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:0)
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a sense of community, I think. People put forth relatively small amounts of effort and get back rich content from the sum. The whole may be no more than the sum of the parts, but the sum is a lot more valuable to you than your part.
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:2)
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:1)
It's like how an art gallery will pay you your cut if they sell your canvas, but they don't pay you for merely displaying your art on their walls.
From the way it's formatted, it offers to open the door to enthusiasts, with plausible compensation if the content warrants it. Reuters' money train is exactly based on content subscriptions from it's clients and they're saying they'll share that.
I think it would make owning a new fancy phone more fun.
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:2)
I will go to great lengths to make a quick buck for myself.
I will do nothing to help a corporation use my effort to make a quick buck for themselves, while i get nothing.
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:2)
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:5, Insightful)
Bragging rights.
"My photo was on [big news agency] - Just look here!"
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:2)
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:0)
Colbert is brilliant, but he is falling prey to his own success. He has become as large as the face he started out mocking, and the power has gone right to his head. Time will tell how he can handle it.
Re:ignorant corporate hacks (Score:1)
These same companies would sue you blind if you used their intellectual property without paying a huge royalty, yet some people seem eager to give them free content for essentially nothing in return. I can only hope it's a passing fad.
This could really help on underreported stories (Score:0)
Re:This could really help on underreported stories (Score:-1, Offtopic)
with BS! [fucd.com] ( NSFW NSFW!!! )
Spears is a terrible, terrible person who took advantage of a nice guy and thinks she will get away with it just because she has cash and looks. Using him for kids and then dumping him... in the end the kids are hurt the most. These photos tell what BS is really all about.
Re:This could really help on underreported stories (Score:0)
It's to be expected. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's to be expected. (Score:0)
Re:It's to be expected. (Score:0)
Re:It's to be expected. (Score:0)
Prepare yourself... (Score:1)
Although this sounds like a neat idea in the beginning, just wait until it gets abused by the masses. Bye bye Yahoo! and Reuters.
What Controls Against Staging/Faking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the numerous problems Reuters has had with its own Middle East reporting, what controls are they going to put in place to ensure that these Citizen Journalists aren't feeding them fake pictures?
Crow T. Trollbot
Re:What Controls Against Staging/Faking? (Score:1, Informative)
To summarise, I can't speak on how Reuters and Yahoo are going to handle things, but from the way the BBC have been doing it for the 18 months they have used it, staging and faking aren't going to be a problem. It is used as a "many eyes" methodology to add extra dimensions to verifiable stories rather than a "viewer x sent us this picture of a lynching, now we are going to write a story about it" line of journalism.
Re:What Controls Against Staging/Faking? (Score:2)
I've occasionally had friends send photos to me, or the other way around, of things that capture an event far better than the news did the next day. There will be times when this is the case of civil rights abuses that we can verify happened but not see; the visual depiction may accelerate civil rights advances by pushing people to action.
Or, as you point out, Reuters may do no verification and set us back ages by showing false inflammatory images in the news.
Re:What Controls Against Staging/Faking? (Score:1)
Indeed. I was glad the article at least briefly mentioned this dilemma, but I fear it's more dangerous and more difficult to solve than they would like to admit. Basically what we have here is a shift that parallels the move from traditional television to reality television, with similar motivations: cheaper than paying professional talent, no unions to deal with, and the viewer finds it more... "visceral", or something. But there's another, less concrete thought that might be behind this. Consider that when The Boston Globe employs people like Mike Barnicle [wikipedia.org] and Patricia Smith [wikipedia.org] who fabricate their reporting, they have the option of hanging them out to dry, and they still don't get out of it without a little egg on their collective face. When falsified content slips through that came from someone who is not employed, possibly not even paid, and virtually anonymous, what can they do besides shrug and say, "Oops. Well, we won't take content from that disposable email address any more." And I'll wager that they find that diluted liability almost as comforting as the lower monetary costs.
That said, I do agree that Citizen Journalism is a Good Thing, since professional journalists who passed their required ethics courses in college can't be everywhere at once. But Journalistic Integrity is just as Good a Thing. Suspicion and skepticism should always have honored places in the production and consumption of news, and I'm personally suspicious and skeptical when my news is coming from people who have no credentials.
It's the radio station "request" model (Score:2)
Pretty simple, I suspect. They'll use the model that US radio stations have used since the dawn of the Top 40 list.
1. Station compiles list of songs that they will play
2. Station tells fans to call in their requests
3. Station ignores all requests for songs not on the list
4. Station puts requests for listed songs on the air as though they were spontaneous
5. Lather, Rinse, Repeat
6. Profit!
This deal could simply be a refinement of the model. To a large extent, the news stories are already determined. Not by some evil cabal -- I'm comfortable leaving my tinfoil hat at home -- but by whatever criteria they already use to determine what will be interesting to readers/viewers. The "innovation" is that they can use civilian-submitted pix and vids to flesh out the story. The story was already there, but now it has more truthiness. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
To give both radio stations and Reuters some credit, though... the faux-request model does give a station an idea of what new songs are percolating in the market, so sometimes the requests *do* matter. Similarly, Reuters & co can get an idea of what people are interested in reading about by looking for trends in the photo/video submissions.
But mostly, it's just going to be window-dressing to look like they're in on the hot new thing.
This is new? (Score:1)
oh boy, we're in trouble now! (Score:0)
Users will not be paid (Score:0)
This is so lame. Over in Sweden, major papers like www.aftonbladet.se have been paying $150 to $1500 for any picture that ends up being used on the site. The higher the hit-count the higher the bounty, but the base is $150 (1000 SEK).
Re:Users will not be paid (Score:2)
It can get worse if such sites attempted to claim copyright for such images. If such sites claimed copyright on user-submitted images, and the users distributed the images to other places, can the users get sued for copyright infringement of their own images even though they have not signed anything and received no consideration for allegedly assigning the copyright?
Re:Users will not be paid (Score:0)
co3k (Score:-1, Flamebait)
Who ARE these people? (Score:2)
Seriously, I'm sick and tired of "having" to see "news" about celebrities who are pregnant, dizzy, out shopping, picking up the newspaper from their front lawn, etc., etc., etc.
Sure, I could choose not to turn on the TV, choose not to read the newspapers, read newssites etc., but damnit - if we can get spamfilters for other crud, why not for this crud?
Re:Who ARE these people? (Score:2)
Lloyd Braun (Score:0)
This is so bogus.
"Serenity Now, Insanity Later"
Serenity now! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Serenity now! (Score:2, Informative)
MOD UP: Informative (Score:0)
Re:Serenity now! (Score:2)
Lloyd Braun (Score:2)
Don't let cops or fire marshalls (Score:0)
Honest question (Score:3, Interesting)
Where is the line between "good for justice/democracy/etc" and "invasion of privacy?"
Re:Honest question (Score:2)
Government abusing regular people - evil, mostly because they can cover each other's backs quite well no matter who's at fault.
Regular people abusing regular people - equality.
Either way, you're still getting invaded. If you react, the only difference is that of a winnable case of simple assault and a no-win case of assault on a police officer.
Re:Honest question (Score:0)
Bild did this (Score:0)
In addition Bild does hardly any additional background checking and verification of images which leads to the publication of other people's intellectual property, funny images found everywhere on the internet, screen grabs of TV shows or sometimes even resubmissions of images previously featured in Bild with different captions. Unless Yahoo and Reuters get their fact checking straight this might have a higher signal to noise ratio than they'd expect and lots of potential for embarassment as well as lawsuits.
Re:Bild did this (Score:1)
The BBC Do This (Score:2, Interesting)
The first time I saw this used was probably the 7/7 attacks in London - many of the first pictures came from mobile phones, and were much more effective at capturing the atmosphere around the photograph than many of the professional photographer's photos.
Major problem with this (Score:3, Interesting)
What publishing cell phone camera photos and movies does is virtually eliminate the possiblity of finding anyone that hasn't been exposed to every possible detail, no matter what.
Another aspect of this is when an "eyewitness" account differs from the rather narrow view of the event presented by a camera. Which would be more likely to be believed? I suspect most people under 30 would unquestingly accept the camera view and people over 30 far more likely to give them equal weight if not be more likely to favor the human. Yes, human memory isn't perfect but neither is the interpretation presented by the cameraman.
And, it is very difficult to tell the difference in the "Internet Age" between something faked and the real thing in a photo when the time between it is taken and when it is old news is like 10 minutes. You either publish it immediately or it has zero value - because everyone else already put it on their web pages. The wire services, AP & Reuters, are having some pretty serious issues with this now, and it is likely just the beginning.
Oh yeah, that'll work. (Score:3, Informative)
Here, take a look at Green Helmet Guy [blogspot.com], the face of anti-semitic news from the Lebanon.
This is a chance for the S/N ratio on the internet to head to, what, minus infinity?
Re:Oh yeah, that'll work. (Score:2)
Indeed, that is text-book propaganda. However, so is calling it "anti-semitic". If anything, it's "anti-Israeli", which is a completely different thing altogether. I'd imagine the irony of labeling Hezbolla propaganda as "anti-semitic" is completely lost on most people.
Re:Oh yeah, that'll work. (Score:2)
Privacy of "celebrities" (Score:2)
Also, people should take caution as they're not Reuters/major media chain employees and are not afforded the same legal protections of Reuters employees. Take a naughty pic of Mrs. Celebrity for $50
Re:Privacy of "celebrities" (Score:2)
Re:Privacy of "celebrities" (Score:2)
Depends on the celebrity. If you are talking about a media-whore (as many of them are) who milk the media for their own benefits, then I really aren't going to lose some sleep over them being hounded over the media-buzz they contrived to create. On the other hand, celebrities that keep to themselves and don't play the game deserve their privacy. This is mostly self-regulating due to the brain-dead public, who are only interested in the Paris Hiltons of the world.
a big problem with this... (Score:1, Interesting)
a huge advancement? (Score:1, Redundant)
http://www.cnn.com/exchange/ [cnn.com]
http://www.cbc.ca/news/photosubmit/ [www.cbc.ca]
Low resolution of cell phones (Score:0)
Any suggestions for a good video camera that doesn't have a webcam lens?
This has lawsuit written all over it. (Score:1)
The continued marginalization of news media (Score:2)
I look forward to this going full circle, and wire services and news networks becoming completely obsolete in favor of citizens reporting the news to other citizens, devoid of heavy-handed corporate or political bias.
Brin's 2038 (Score:2)
We'll pay the price in entropy (Score:2)
Obviously the price to pay for this is in the currency of entropy. You get a lot of interesting stuff at random, but there is mostly crap. The theory of large number will continue to work. I'm guessing, we'll end up celebrating banality and mediocrity more frequently, but we'll also get a finite number of macabre or surreal 6 to 15 sigma events recorded too, which will ultimately drive people-based photojournalism.