Scoopt sells camera phones photos to media; debate about citizen journalists

A new company, Scoopt (see below), has been launched to sell photos by "just plain folks" (as well as professionals) taken with camera phones -- still photos and videos -- as well as digital cameras and even disposable cameras.

The company's launch also has generated news articles about the responsibility of the media in encouraging consumers to take photos and how consumers should act during times of crisis.

BBC News has an interesting article headlined "Ethics issue for citizen snappers."  The article says, "Following the London bomb attacks and Asian tsunami, news outlets have been keen to exploit mobile snaps and videos.

"Cameraphone growth has let more people capture events as they happen.  Such hazy snaps usually taken by amateurs who witness events before they hit the headlines are proving valuable to traditional news organizations."

Safety and humanitarian concerns

The head of Scoopt, Kyle MacRae, says in the article that people should not necessarily rush out to take photos.  Indeed, during emergencies -- such as a bomb going off -- there's an "ethical issue" of someone first takes a photo rather than helping, he says.

Peter Clifton, the editor of the BBC News Web site, says the BBC doesn't anticipate paying consumer for photos that are submitted.  "My feeling is that the vast majority of people simply want to join our newsgathering process and nobody has been talking in terms of making money when contacting us."

[There's a lot more in the article, but I've got to run.  Check it out.]

Quality versus importance

Not surprisingly (to me, at least), MacRae says the quality of the images isn't important if it's very newsworthy.  Interestingly, citizen journalism changes the definition of newsworthy.

MacRae says, "Once people are in the habit of looking at the world through a camera lens we are going to get a tremendous variety of photographs from anything under the Sun.

"I think 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."

Citizen journalists could photograph many local events and perhaps get scoops, MacRae notes.

Changes, changes

I've been writing for some time about how the world will change as the result of hundreds of millions of people having the ability to shoot photos and videos of everything that occurs around them. 

Some people understand the power of wireless imaging, but it's still esoteric for most.

Indeed, I think even many people in the wireless industry aren't as clued in as they should about the society-changing aspects of camera phones.  The industry looks at the relatively disappointing revenues from MMS and is focusing on wireless music and wireless games.

Relative importance

Certainly those are valuable and fun services for subscribers and revenue-generators for the wireless industry.  But as I've written, wireless music will change the music business and wireless games will change the games business. 

But wireless imaging is far more important.

Comments

[Spencer Mcfadden]

I work for a newspaper, we are looking at setting up a MMS receiving function to receive images from camera phones from citizen journalists. Is there software anyone can recommend for use in receivng these images? Also what type of hardware would be required?

Cheers
Spencer

[John]

I wonder how they monitor the photos and make sure they are not stolen or taken from another magazine or website?

This reminds me of Constant-Content.com, but this place where you can submit articles for sale not photos. Seems like content would be easier to manage copyright issues then images, it would be interesting to hear how they handle this.

[Tychocat]

I remain dubious about the concept of "citizen journalists". You wouldn't call yourself a chef from owning a frying-pan. Suddenly, people who own cameras (or presumably notebooks and pencils) are de facto journalists? I've a lot of friends who got a degree in journalism, and spent years working up from copyboy jobs to get into the news room, and I'm certain none of them would credit the mere ownership of instrumentality to their success. The ethical questions of being a "citizen journalist" is just one aspect that needs addressing. I would suspect the sheer definition of what "news" is, would be another, as opposed to ambulance-chasing.