AP Thinking About Making Reporters Citizen Journalist Talent Scouts As Well
from the sign-'em-up dept
It's no secret that various news organizations are working on ways to incorporate more people into the news gathering process -- whether you call it "citizen journalism" or "exploiting digital sharecroppers." Whatever you consider it, it appears the Associated Press is considering a new idea, recognizing that people with camera phones are quite often on various breaking news scenes well before they are. While plenty of other news organizations let people upload photos taken with camera phones and there are some services designed to broker those photos to news organizations, the AP is thinking of giving its own reporters and photographers release documents they can get anyone on the scene to sign, if they've taken a decent camera phone shot of a news event. That way, the AP can quickly get a good photo and spread it through their distribution network, even if it wasn't taken by an AP photographer. Of course, it's not clear what the terms of the release form are (which is probably because it's just an idea and hasn't been written yet), but it's still a step towards recognizing that it's not just the "official" press who explains the news any more.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Arriving AFTER an Tradegy
Of course, if it is a once in a lifetime shot that the reporter missed - like arriving at the scene of a great accident - it is possible that if the person was approached in a very convincing way, they would be amenable.
But, it must be a very uncomfortable position for anyone to have to be in.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Two issues...
>
2. The only I can see with this is your final statement:
Now, the issue has come up time and time again about how bloggers and such are not placed under the same criteria as newspapers because of free speech concerns. I think it only fair that if laypeople are someday recognized as news gathers/distributors that they are held to the same standards as professional journalists (whatever they are, looking at the news sometimes I am hard pressed to see any standards).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]