Reuters and Yahoo! Enlist Camera Phones

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.

[LiquidCoooled]

The BBC have been requesting user captured media [bbc.co.uk] since (I think) the July 7th bombings in London.


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 [e-mail] or via mms by dialling [phone].

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:What Controls Against Staging/Faking?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only pass comment on what the BBC have been doing since they started asking for pictures a year or so ago. The basic premiss there is send things in when we don't have much coverage. For example, there was a major fire/explosion at a fireworks factory in england last night. The BBC would have a camera crew there etcetera, but they would only have one angle (in all sense of the word) on the subject, and so they were inviting folks to send in what they had shot of the event (as well as comments from people who lived near by). The same has happened over the last couple days with the severe flooding that has hit many parts of Scotland.

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:Serenity now!

[tylersoze]

Ha! Apparently the Lloyd Braun on Seinfeld was named for this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Braun_(Seinfeld ) [wikipedia.org]

Re:not the first

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how the right never mentions this fake [wikipedia.org]. I'm pretty sure For reported it as fact. Your president did even after being told it was false.

Oh yeah, that'll work.

[PHAEDRU5]

So, on an internet where nobody knows you're a dog, "reputable" organizations will start posting non-traceable input as news??!?!?!!?!!!

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:The BBC have been doing this for a while.

[Yakman]

The Sydney Morning Herald [smh.com.au] here in Australia has a similar thing at the bottom of every news story:

When news happens: send photos, videos & tip-offs to 0424 SMS SMH ([phone]), or email us.

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.