Dennis Dunleavy

Moveable Type

A draw full of moveable type at the San Jose History Museum reminded me of how much computers have changed the way we communicate and even think.

Beware of Statistics: Numbers aren't everything in Photojournalism but they still count

Yesterday I wrote about salaries in visual journalism. Although the term visual journalism, for some people, may include videography, graphic arts and design, I was referring primarily to the field of news photography or photojournalism.

In my rush to make a point I found only a few references online to what the median income of a photojournalist is today. I only found two sources for the figures that indicated the median salary for entry-level photojournalists at approximately $24,000 a year, and that was for 2000 and 2002.

I would imagine that salaries are dependent also on location and the size of the newspaper. Greg  Smith in a commentary on the Digital Journalist website did suggest that the average salary at a media size daily newspaper for photojournalists in about $40,000.

Nowhere in my search did I find salaries ranging in scale from $50,000 to $150,000 for entry-level photographers as suggested in claims made by Brooks Institute recruiters.

California Agency Alleges Brooks Institute of Photography "Willfully" Misled Students

Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California has allegedly been conducting misleading recruitment practices by promising students they could earn between $50,000 to $150,000 in photography after graduation. According to a recent investigation by California's Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education the school was given a conditional operating status after it was found to have "willfully" misled students to believe that they could find high paying jobs in the field among completion of their program.

The New York Times reported that the 60-year-old trade school had been under investigation for some time by the bureau and had sent an undercover investigator to the school.  According to the newspaper:

The California bureau, in addition to finding violations in Brooks's records, sent an employee to the school, posing as a prospective student. The report said she was told that she could expect her starting salary to be "$50,000 to $150,000" in her first year after graduation from Brooks - enough to pay off the debt she would take on as a student. "The sky's the limit," the admissions official said of her prospects, according to the report.

But the bureau's examination of Brooks's records found not one 2003 graduate at any degree level whose reported wages and employment tenure were enough to generate even $50,000 of earning potential.

Indeed, of the 45 graduates reported by Brooks as employed full time, the average income was about $26,000, the report said. The average indebtedness of this group was around $74,000.

In the official report, not only did Brook's officials mislead students by projecting high salaries, but they also presented false information on the availability of jobs.

In order for the school to continue operating under conditional approval, Brooks must now return an unspecified amount of money back to all students enrolled since 1999. According to The New York Times, the payoff to students could amount to between $21 - $43 million, which would be a drop in the bucket considering that Brook's parent company Career Education Corporation earned more than $300 million last year alone.

It is not clear which of the various programs offered by Brooks were investigated, but anyone connected to visual journalism understands that competition for entry level jobs is extremely intense and the salary poor, especially at small weeklies and dailies. Brooks began its visual journalism program in 2001 and some observers claim more than 300 students are enrolled in courses at any one time.

Daniel Sato, a former visual journalism student at Brooks, confirms in his blog what the investigation now makes clear:

I was told by the admissions adviser that Brooks had a high graduation rate and an excellent job placement rate, finding jobs for 90% of its graduates. With tuition costing around three to four thousand dollars every two months, job placement and average salary was a question that was in the front of everyone's mind heading in to Brooks.

 

It is hard to imagine where all the graduates from the Brooks program will go to find work in a field with seemingly limited opportunities for employment. The National Press Photographer's website lists about 50 universities with photojournalism program across the country. With student enrollment in the emphasis ranging between 20 and 150, depending on the institute, there are far more students graduating than there are opportunities for them in the field at present.

According to the Education Portal, in 2002 the "Median annual salaries of waged photographers was $24,040 according to the Bureau of Labor Occupational Outlook Handbook."

As an educator, one of the most difficult discussions I face having with my students is what they will do after earning a degree with an emphasis in photojournalism.

I hope I am honest with my students about the prospects of this occupation and I hope they understand the situation clearly.

I hope I convey to them that opportunities out in the so-called "real world" are earned not only by mastering technical, compositional and journalistic competencies, but also through having a strong work ethic as well as good interpersonal skills.

It is no long "good enough" for students to just be photographers and take great pictures.

Students must be good writers and communicators as well. They must grasp the complex relationships in the world in order to tell compelling stories. Yes, students must be visually literate and technologically sophisticated, but they also must be integrative, analytical and critical thinkers.

Then, and only then, can students expect to "make it" in an occupation besieged by the trend toward bottom line business deals and share holder earnings.

In discussions with students concerned about their future, I find myself asking them what if photojournalism does not work out as a career. What if the dream fade?

If they cannot find work as a photojournalist after spending so many years and so much money in college, then what?  In advising students, there must always be a Plan B. Many of my students think about these things. They cross train themselves in journalism as well as political science, history, sociology, or education. My students are beyond book smart, they are "real world" smart.

Judging from the charges leveled against Brooks recently, apparently the  recruiters failed to consider the consequences of promising so much from a field that offers a median income of $24,000 a year nationwide. Apparently, the recruiters are determined to place profits over people. It's a risky game--one that they have been called on.

Promising students that they will make $50,000 or more right out college in photography is like promising the moon and fails to live up to the obligations educators have in being honest with students.

Much thanks to student Daniel Sato for the heads up on this story and to Apad's Melissa Lyttle for posting the original source links.

Hot News: Cliche Pictures

Front page newspaper coverage of the weather often include cliche images to tell an old story.

In the past few days, newspapers across the country have determined that hot weather is among the most important pieces of information to convey to readership. Not that the readers wouldn't already know that it is  hot, but once it is officially published in the local paper it becomes news. 

In the age of the Internet, however, this sort of coverage really becomes old news, way old news. So why do editors, reporters and photographers spend so much energy putting together front page stories related to what their readers must already know? Pictures accompanying these  types of stories often tend to be cliche.

Cliche images are pictures that have lost any sense of originality or  force through overuse.

Look at how many times the mass media re-presents "hot" weather using images of kids in swimming pools. Kids and animals are always safe subjects because they have the "cute" factor going for them.

In this age of instant information, when people can get news from multiple sources any time they want, I question  the value of allocating so much front page real estate to weather art, when there are so many other important events happening around us. 

I can see how a newspaper might justify weather related stories if they are connected to consequence, but much of what I see on the front page with cliche weather art is just plain old fluff.

It seems that cliche images are used as an apology for a lack of real reporting.  In a sense, editors justify using cliche weather art because they have nothing else to report of substance or because they think this is what readers want to see. In other words, there is a lot of hot air in the newsroom when it comes to selecting hot weather art.   

Sophie's World

Summer means spending a lot more time with the children. Most of the time we just go for long walks. At four months, Sophie still spends most of her time sleeping.

Shoot, Scan, Sell: Do-It-Yourself News Photography and Feeding the Beast

Just a few days before the first bomb blasts jolted London and camera phone images of the crisis began to splash across the Internet and the news, Kyle MacRae launched Scoopt.

Scoopt is an online photo service for citizen journalist shutterbugs looking to have their images noticed by picture editors and possibly picked up by mainstream media. Scoopt is clearly picking up on a trend in society. It is trying to establish itself as the beginnings of a new cottage industry in society—one that caters to the average citizen’s need to share their news with the world.

As Joe Light of the Boston Globe notes, “Citizen journalism has quickly infiltrated an industry sometimes sluggish to make big changes, and the phenomenon demonstrates that a mainstream industry has learned its lesson from the revolutionary impact of the Internet.”

The Washington Post's Ariana Eunjung Cha reports that citizen journalists are “creating what some believe to be a more democratic press, but throwing into question what it means to be a journalist and adding a new dimension to debates over fairness, libel, protection of confidential sources and trust in the media.”

Here's were the Scoopt idea comes in.

Scoopt’s promotional pitch poses a provocative question, “Who will take tomorrow's front page photograph - a professional press photographer or a passer-by armed with a cameraphone?”

If you photograph a newsworthy event, you could have a valuable scoop on your hands. Scoopt represents you, making sure the right people see your photo and ensuring that you get a good deal. Scoopt is simple. Scoopt works. Above all, Scoopt works for you. Join Scoopt today. Snap... Send... Sell...

MacRae’s project is ambitious and only time will tell if the idea of an amateur stock picture agency will take hold. Right now, however, we are caught up in the novelty of the moment and I think it is a little early to answer the question of “who will take tomorrow’s front page photos.”

There is always a period of sociological adjustment when any major technological change, such as camera phones and the Internet, becomes a pervasive force in our lives.

Citizen shutterbugs armed with camera phones images are part of a larger societal trend in the information arts. Conventional forms of media are struggling to make sense of these changes across multiple platforms, still, video, print and audio.

Citizen shutterbugs are average people with little or no training in photography or photojournalism. For one reason or another these individuals find themselves in a news situation, feel compelled to capture the situation digitally and then transmit the images through the Internet.

The images that citizen shutterbugs produce are for the most part inferior to the pictures professionals make. What makes these images special, however, is the context and moment in which they record an event of significance to the general public. Often citizen shutterbugs, out of circumstance, capture moments that circumvent the established institutions of news gathering and dissemination.

However, the mainstream media plays a huge role in the publication and
promotion of these images once they have been made known. So it seems that citizen journalism is in large part dependent on channels provided by
mainstream media outlets.

Will sites such as Scoopt contribute to an alternative view of what photojournalism is?

Public interest as well as the mainstream media’s acceptance of what they may consider pseudo-journalistic enterprises like Scoopt will ultimately be the deciding factors.

Our definition of photojournalism may be changing in these times of instant everything. From the traditional perspective, photojournalism applies both to a style of photography as well as an occupational group.

Camera phones are revolutionizing photojournalism because they represent another important source of visual reportage that can help to inform and edify the public's understanding of the world.

Ultimately, photojournalism is about visually reporting and witnessing events that are of import and relevance to others in society.  Does it matter significantly if the source of these images is a professional or an amateur? I think it does if you consider how important credibility is to maintaining public confidence in sources of information.

Thinking about the ethical and moral consequences that may arise from citizen journalism is still a gray area. Most people do not understand how abstract concepts such as objectivity, balance, fairness, and accountability. It is a matter of professional journalists helping citizens to understand what news credible in the eyes of the public.

We are entering a new era of information arts that make audio, video and still photography accessible to many people that only a few years ago would be impossible. It is critical that as educators and journalists we acknowledge and accept these changes.

One of the biggest challenges for sites such as Scoopt will be to verify the authenticity of images.  Since citizen journalists are not necessarily trained to considered the ethical issues involved in making pictures will the public perceive the source as credible?

Scoopt’s MacRae is taking this issue seriously and has attempted to build in some credibly safeguard.

According to MacRae, “First off, we only accept submissions from members, so we already have the sender's personal details on file….Registration means accepting our strict terms and conditions. This is legally binding.”

In addition, “When a member uploads a photo directly to our server, he has to complete a disclosure form. This is the who-what-where info that any buyer needs to know. We also make them reconfirm yet again that the photo complies with our general terms and our keeping it legal conditions.”

Furthermore, beyond disclosure, MacRae calls the member to “discuss the circumstances surrounding a photo if we have any doubts about its veracity of legality.”

MacRae uses his journalistic instincts along with an established code of ethics to deal with possible hoaxes.

“As for the ethics... that's our call,” he said.

“So will we get hoaxed? I'm absolutely certain that people will try to hoax us (and by extension newspapers and other media outlets) but I'm reasonably confident that we won't get hoodwinked.”

At present, Scoopt is just beginning to catch on.

According to MacRae membership stands at, “Only a couple of hundred but that's from a standing start and with virtually no effort.” However, it may takes months or even years for the project to really take off in terms of a business.

When asked if the average person really understands the concept of using a media agency to disseminate work, MacRae responds:

I'm not sure they'll see it this way. Our target audience is not the pro photographer or the wannabe pro, or even the enthusiastic amateur. We're dealing with people who have camera phones and just happen to stumble upon a newsworthy event. I think it is already well-established that it's possible to publish amateur photos online in blogs and sharing sites like Flickr; and it is now evident to everybody that media outlets will publish such pics. What is not obvious (yet) is that amateur pics can and should attract a fair fee. Scoopt offers a fast, simple route to the paying market so it should be something of a no-brainer to send a hot photo to Scoopt.

Citizen journalism is not a substitute for the values, competencies and skills professional reporters and photojournalists bring to providing insight and depth in the coverage of complex events.

It is unrealistic to expect that citizen shutterbugs with digital cameras and camera phones could serve the same function as trained professionals.

However, with some basic training in area of news judgment, news values, ethics, and truth-telling, citizen journalism can and is making a difference in our world.

Photojournalism has never been the exclusive domain of paid professionals who are specialists in visual reportage. There are many important historic images which images were not made by trained photojournalists. Today we have an occupational group called photojournalism, but twenty years prior this profession was called news photography and before that just photography. It should come as no real surprise that the way in which images capture reality can change with technological innovation and access.

At the same time, there are certainly codes of conduct, values, skills and conventions that apply to photojournalism that are very different from conceptual art photography or even commercial photography. Ultimately, photojournalism gets its power from the context and truth in which the images are made, regardless of who actually snaps the shutter.

Camera phones, as a device, alter how journalists can now interact with each other in gathering information. For example, a reporter with a camera phone can relay images of a news situation back to the newsroom to help clarify information in a story. These images would most likely never be used for publication but they would serve an important function in the news cycle.

Reporters can also provide instant images for artists in the newsroom to create information graphics and visuals in far less time than a verbal description. Photojournalists can use camera phones to communicate with photo editors prior to making images with higher grade professional equipment.

Camera phone images can provide immediate visual references for understanding the context and details of a scene in which editors can be better informed in making important news decisions.

Society in general must become more visually literate before we will see any real shift away from a mere snapshot of something to the more highly refined ways if seeing and visual storytelling that photojournalism has become. Can a visual literacy happen on a world-wide scale where average people become more visually sophisticated and analytic thinkers. Yes. It is already happening.

Citizen journalism can and will develop around the world to help educate themselves in the production of news images. Will they seriously compete with professional journalists as a primarily source of visual reportage?

Despite changes in how news made be gathered and consumed in the future, the information needs of the public will remain high.

Citizen journalism is a form of social advocacy that challenges how news is constructed. The potential of citizen journalism is that it confronts the capitalistic model of a revenue generating information system that the mainstream press has become. 

Now, getting back to Scoopt and Do-It-Yourself news photography.  Although it appears Scoopt promotes citizen journalism it is also designed to "feed the beast" of mainstream media.

The criticism that might come down on sites like Scoopt is that they are based on making money off the mainstream media by providing another source of visuals.

Some critics may feel that the motivation for people making pictures with camera phones might put them in harms way just so they can make a few bucks. Will this new cottage industry spawn a generation of snaparazzi willing to risk it all to get a picture at the scene of a disaster or even of some celebrity walking along a beach somewhere?

I am reluctant to pass such a judgment on what Scoopt represents in the emerging world of information arts. I understand the business of our visual culture and Scoopt, along with many other ventures, is all a part of it.

Gee's Gaffe Was On a Message Board

I have been made aware that Gee's comments about his "hot" student were posted originally to a message board and not to a blog. Clearly there are differences between the two, but the consequences of his mind-numbing brilliance still rings in my ears. Thanks to Ryan Sholin and his  J-School Blog for catching our oversight. 

Blogging as Teaching Tool Takes a Hit

As an educator and as a frequent blogger I went crazy today after reading Robert MacMillian's article in the Washington Post about a journalism teacher's blogging gaffe. I went crazy (sort of) because this teacher's actions undermine blogging's potential as a tool for learning and discourse.

The nutshell is this:

Boston University hired former Boston Herald sports writer Michael Gee to teach part-time. Shortly after beginning his teaching at BU, Gee posted a note on his blog about an "incredibly hot" student in class. Ultimately, Gee was fired from his teaching job after the incident. Now, Gee is both a former journalist and a former teacher.

Gee's comments damage journalism and journalism education in many ways.

I believe, this sort of thing feeds the fears of college administrators who have been and continue to be extremely suspicious of educators who blog.

Many in the closed ranks of university administration appear fearful of blogging because there is the potential of doing exactly what Mr. Gee has done-- discredit the insitution, the profession and himself. Administrators  fear blogging because they cannot control the message, which may impact the university's image. When you have a zillion teacher/bloggers out there institutions cannot police what is being said about them. In this instance, the institution has a repsonsibility to protect students from the sexual advances of its teachers. Blogging about a student's "hot bod" drives administrators insane.

In academic writing, there is a peer review process which helps to guarantee that what is being discussed has some credibility. On the web, however, there is no peer review until you write something that smacks of total stupidity.

First and foremost, Mr. Gee is NO educator. He's a journalist pretending to be a teacher. In my opinion, the university , and this could be any university not just BU, teachers are brought on because they possess professional skills that students demand to find work after graduation.

Adjunct professors play an incredibly important role in journalism education because they bring real world and real time experience with them. Unfortunately, Mr. Gee's behavior serves the educational needs of his students very poorly and it is clear that the institution may have made a mistake hiring an individual who clearly demonstrates poor taste and very little respect for the institution of higher learning.

Mr. Gee is not a teacher. I say this with the conviction, because the statements he made violate several of the most basic tenets of education. 

1. Treat all people, especially students with respect and dignity.
2. Never, ever single out a student in class or otherwise.
3. Teaching is an empathic process, not a place to pursue unfulfilled sexual fantasies.

If Mr. Gee were a trained educator he would know these things.  If Mr. Gee was really interesting in using his blog to teach rather than taunt and tease he would know:

1. Using a blog in education should be considered an extension of the classroom.
2. Educators who blog know that even if students may be physically present in class they may not always understand all that is discussed.
3. An educator's blog is a resource and reference for student, not a place to hang out dirty laundry.

Shame on Mr. Gee for giving all of us in academe, especially those of us in journalism education, a black eye. I am upset with Mr. Gee not because of his poor judgment in fantasizing about a student, but because he threatens something I so strongly believe in --  blogging as a transformative learning experience.

Mr. Gee threatens and undermines the potential of blogging as a creative way of reaching out to students. Blogging, for me, represents the future of a constructive and empowering discourse with my students. What Mr. Gee did smacks of self-interest and is pure nonsense. 

I believe teaching is a noble and very difficult profession to master. I wish others understood this better. I wish Mr. Gee's indiscretions were kept were they belonged -- to himself.

[Michael Gee] [Blogging and Education] [Journalism] [Journalism and Education]

Omar Vega: Student/Photojournalist Burglarly Case Settled Out of Court

Criminal charges against Omar Vega and several other San Francisco State University students who allegedly broke into a car on campus last year have been dropped after an out of court settlement was reached.

Despite the loud sigh of relief that comes with resolving any litigation, getting closure in this affair may be bittersweet for advocates of student press rights. I say bittersweet because by settling out of court the question as to Omar’s status as a student/journalist will not be addressed. This is an important matter -- one that should not be swept off the table with an out of court settlement.

Omar, at the time of his arrest on misdemeanor burglary charges in February 2004, said, according to a report in the student newspaper, “he was acting as a photojournalist and not directly involved in a crime.” Now, however, the disposition of having his actions settled as part of the group leaves his claims of protection under the First Amendment a non-issue.

When this first came down, journalism school administrators raised a huge stink about Omar’s rights as a journalist. For example, John Burks, journalism department chair at SF State, remarks that Omar “was doing what we teach you to do as a journalist."

What is to become of a case that seemed originally destined to clarify the rights of a student press on campus?

Omar, along with his lawyer and members of the journalism faculty at SFSU, drew public attention to the arrest by claiming that the charges were made only after Omar publicly embarrassed the institution with his photography.

With an out of court settlement in this affair, we may never learn where the lines are in terms of how student/journalists are to be treated under the First Amendment. Circumventing a lengthy and expensive trial in this case, may be good for Omar and his colleagues in the short term, but bad for press freedom otherwise.

What are we to believe in the case of this settlement? Does this action relieve us of the responsibility of seeking the truth as to Omar’s involvement in the burglary? Does this out of court settlement resolve the more complicated issues that were raised early on with claims of trampling on the First Amendment?

Although this case has been settled legally, there are still, in my opinion, several unresolved moral, philosophical, and pedagogical issues left wide open here.

As I have said in an earlier post, the authorities perceive of Omar as a college freshman first, and a journalist second. In opposition to this, Omar, his lawyer, and the journalism school, perceive him to be a journalist first and a student second.

It now appears, that with this settlement, matters regarding Omar’s identity in the eyes of the court and the public will remain half-shut.

Truth Has Consequences: Thoughts and Comments

Documentary Photographer Robert Gumpert has responded with some thoughts  about my article on how digital cameras and digital technology is changing photojournalism. Read an earlier post (2004) about Robert .

Bob starts off with a critique of a quote from Washington Post Magazine photo editor Keith Jenkins, suggesting that "With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: Digital camera, laptop and an Internet connection."

RG:

"What is the point of you teaching what you teach?  Of course I don't believe that the above is true but is only a reflection of a growing trend - namely that technique and equipment are all that is needed to do images/journalism.  Sort of like now that there is spell and grammar check anyone can write.  Or because there is now simple but powerful desktop publishing software everyone is a graphic designer.  This is a phenomena that has hit us everywhere - the idea of everyone can do everything - from "professional movie making to journalism to teaching"  It isn't so. 

Further, responding to an assumption I apparently made that disregards the historical context in which photography has not solely been the exclusive domain of professionals Robert points out.

RG:

The Abu Ghraib photos weren't something new, these kind of images have been around for a long time.  The fact that they were digital only made it quicker and easier for them to hit the general public.  The Mai Lai images, as I recall, were not taken by a professional photojournalist and the sinking of the Argentine battleship was taken by a soldier. There have been for a number of years, images of plane crashes taken by passersby.

The camera phone or for that matter the tiny still/video digital that everyone now carries are, I think, powering an accelerated change, a change that had already hit the "news desks" years ago.  We live in a time that values reaction over thought.  A time that seems to increasingly distrust education, professionalism, specialists and value speed and technique.

Is this new? No.  Has the electronic information age sped it along? Yes.  Does the dumbing down of images affect the way photojournalists work and current styles of "journalism", "reporting", portraits? Yes. The fact is given the right circumstances anyone can take "good" images.  Years ago, to prove a point, an editor of one the Sunday magazines in London ran a cover taken by a gorilla in the zoo.  It was as good as about 75% of the covers they ran.  The camera did the work and since the gorilla was being "paid" with food, she (I think it was a she but I really don't know) took hundreds of shots.  All that was needed was one. 

We are living in a time where the old adage give a monkey a typewriter and enough time and Shakespeare will appear has sort of come true. Unfortunately we are confusing every image with greatness and news value.  First because we marvel at the technology (live remotes on local news 20 years ago, live, real time images from the battle field in Iraq.  And now camera phone images/video from tunnels in London) and then because they have become the standard.  Local news goes to a live remote all the time not because it adds anything to the story or is needed but because it is convention. 

Technology for a long time now hasn't been aiding in news gathering, it has been shaping what is news.  Not every car chase is news but you wouldn't know that from the way such "events" are covered in most news markets around the country.

We talk and pundit far too much about the technology and not enough about the use and what "journalism" is or should be.

With regard to privacy and the ubiquitous presence of cameras in society Robert observes.

RG:

Just one last thought:  Privacy.  Camera phones and other small imaging devices in the hands of what you call CSers have and are going to increasingly make the job of journalists and photojournalists more difficult.   As the "citizens" become more intrusive and the "reporting" they do becomes less and less trustworthy, it is not they that will pay the price but the professionals who will find getting the image harder and harder.

The quote from the Washington Post photo editor really does sum it all up: Form over content.  Content over thought.  Technology over everything. Once I took a workshop from Don McCullin and he was asked what kind of camera he used.  His response:  "It wouldn't matter if I used a pinhole, the pictures would look the same because I took them".  Way too many in the business, at the papers, magazines, agencies and schools, have forgotten that the camera doesn't take the photo, the photographer/journalist does. 

Robert's note brings up some of the things I have been wrestling with lately as I prepare for a pre-conference workshop in San Antonio next month as the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications. I would like to think that many if not most journalism educators are concerned with how best to teach both new media skills as well as common core values.

The impact of the visual in society is undeniable. Media, from print, broadcast, film, digital video and the Internet, increasingly rely on images to tell stories. Effective teaching in Journalism and Mass Communications suggests the conviction that students toward critical and sophisticated visual thinking along with other communicative skills, such as writing and developing healthy interpersonal relationship in the newsroom and beyond. In addition to understanding new media skills influencing traditional routines and rituals in visual journalism today, educators must continue to emphasize core competencies and values –– components which are inextricably bound to the visual storytelling, writing and editing process.

For Dates (2001), “As technology advances, our graduates must be prepared to hold onto core values, using the basic foundations we have built with them to help share media to meet society’s needs” (Janette L. Dates, “Symposium: Journalism and Mass Communication Education at the Crossroads”. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, Autumn 2001, Vol. 56/3, page 21).
   

For Mitchell (2002), “Instructors need to teach new media skills in the context of being tools to get journalism done. I think they probably get that; where I have some concerns is when traditional journalistic courses are aced out to make way for new media skill courses - taught, at some times, by professors who know less about new media than the students” (Poynter Online Discussion Thread).

In a recent address to members of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communications, Mary Alice Shaver, emphasizes how educators must continue to teach toward the traditional core values of truth-telling, accuracy, public service as well as minimizing harm. Further, Shaver suggests that educators need to ensure that’s “today students have the skills to meet today’s employment requirements,” but she also cautions that students must be prepared to “adapt and thrive in tomorrow’s marketplace” (AEJMC News, May 2005, page 2).

Last summer (2004), the Carnegie Corporation sponsored a study inviting journalism deans from across the country to consider the role of the higher education in revitalizing journalism program in order to strengthen the profession and its obligations toward an informed citizenry in a democracy. In the study, more than 40  news industry leaders were interviewed about the state of journalism education and how journalism schools could elevate the profession’s standards and status (Improving the Education of Tomorrow’s Journalists, 2005, Carnegie, page 2).

The Carnegie study showed agreement among news industry leaders that changes in the news business brought about by the drive for profit, diminished objectivity and a trend toward “entertainment” content seriously challenges journalists and the organizations they worked for. Findings of the study suggest that educators must be dedicated to “emphasize the basics of the journalism craft, along with analytical thinking and a strong sense of ethics” (Improving, page 3).

The Carnegie study examines the shared concerns of news industry leaders pertaining to journalism education. For example, “The majority of interviewees agreed that the most critical responsibility of journalists is to serve the public interest and protect our democracy.” Further leaders expressed opinions suggesting that may journalism schools may not fit into the changing media environment -- one in which readers admit to having far less free time to consume news in a progressively interconnected world (page 5).

How are visual journalism educators expected to respond to the demands of an ever-changing media environment? How can a balance be struck between teaching new media skills and core journalistic values?

In a recent study exploring the perceptions photo managers and photo editors hold toward the adoption of new technologies, Michelle Sellig (2005) explicates the concerns professionals have about journalism education.

Sellig’s research suggests that professionals expect students not only to be competent in the producing news images, but also understand how to generate story ideas, gain access to and build rapport with subjects, demonstrated solid news judgment and ethical decision-making, write clearly and cohesively, as well as have a mastery of editing images for visual impact. Photo managers and photo editors, according to Sellig, want students to have good people skills, show compassion and respect for others, possess a good work ethic, show that they are able to listen and learn, demonstrate solid news reporting skills, and understand the importance of fairness and accuracy in journalistic practice.

For visual journalism educators one of the present challenges appears to be finding ways in which to demonstrate inter-connectivity between the art of photography and the science of journalism. 

Last year I wrote about one of the most important gift teachers can  leave with students  -- empathy. I am not sure I am always successful at teaching this quality but I recognize how critical it is in making meaningful and socially relevant images.

One of the most important skills we can learn from photojournalism is empathy. As photojournalists our strength comes from the ability to communicate honestly through our images. Communication is all about making connections. As photojournalists, we are not mechanics fixing broken parts. We are storytellers communicating about what it is like to be in the world.

Every time we go out into the world with a camera to interpret and record what we experience through seeing we become participants in a very human drama. Our images must reflect the contingencies of human experience at a given time and place.

My Big Brother and Me: How Citizen Shutterbugs Police Society

Following the bombings in London authorities are asking citizens to hand over camera phone images and video of the attacks in an attempt to identify the perpetrators.

According to the BBC, the police "believe the footage could provide vital  clues as the search for bodies and forensic evidence continues." 

I have mixed feelings about an appeal to the public to hand over images on the speculation that they may or may not prove useful in the investigation.

What is clear to me from this story is that we are now living an era where the use of camera phones will make everyone a potential "big brother."

Get The Picture?

I fear that cherished civil liberties in democratic societies such as privacy rights will soon get trampled and shuffled aside for the sake of the so-called "greater good" of the whole.

More than 1,700 people have already responded positively to the appeal to "hand over" images, but there is still a dangerous precedent being set here -- one that needs to be explored more deeply and in the calm light of reason.

Populist Photojournalism

An article in ITNEWS on the use of camera phones during the bombings in London struck me as interesting because yet another term to describe citizen shutterbugs has surfaced to describe the phenomena.

In the article, Photosharing Surges Following London Bombings, the authors use the term "populist photojournalism" to describe how people with digital cameras and camera phones have taken to downloading images from the disaster.

According to the article:

Populist photojournalism took a bow on photo-sharing sites in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks in London.

While the news of Thursday's terrorist attacks in London spread through the traditional news media's Web sites and the newer blogosphere, populist photojournalism took a bow on photo-sharing sites such as Yahoo's new acquisition, Flickr.

Kids Communicate In Lots of Different Ways

I have always been curious about how children communicate through art and play.

The other day I was concerned with Liam's tendency to get "a little" close to his baby sister.  We had a few words about "space" and being careful around the baby. After feeling bad about the incident for about five minutes he went inside the house and grabbed a piece of scrap paper and a pencil to make this drawing.

Liam's drawing of himself and his sister communicates a sense of scale and  place to me. I interpret the image as Liam having a positive association with his sister, and something to be encouraged. According to Carolyn Tomlin, "Young children are often not able to express or discuss their thoughts and feelings because of their limited vocabularies and language skills."

I had never really seen him attempt to make figures or characters before so I was struck when he started in on this scene. Clearly, he was working a few things out through his drawing and trying to communicate his feelings with himself and others in a deeper way.

Camera Phone Article in This Month's Digital Journalist

The June issue of The Digital Journalist is out and they are running my piece on camera phones and the London Bombings. It is always great to find others interested in similar issues. I think camera phones raise a lot of serious questions about news gathering and information seeking in society.

This month's Digital Journalist is excellent. If you aren't on the mailing list I am posting Dirck Halstead's letter to his readers so you can get an idea of what's being offered.

A good photojournalist is one who can make a commitment. It is
commitment to the story that drives him or her. Sometimes the
commitment is brief; in other cases, the commitment can last a
lifetime. Such is the case with Philip Jones Griffiths. When he first
went to Vietnam in 1965 to cover the war, he had no idea that story
would continue for the rest of his life. In 1966 he published his
first photographs of that war in a book that stands as one of the
greatest volumes in photojournalistic history, "Vietnam, Inc." Long
after the last battles, Philip continued to return to Vietnam to
document the lives of the people who had been contaminated by Agent
Orange, the defoliant that the U.S. Air Force sprayed over the
jungles. Last year, we presented that body of work on The Digital
Journalist, and it became an important book. In this issue, we look
at the breadth of his reportage from that war-weary country over the
past 40 years, in our cover story, "The Vietnamization of Philip
Jones Griffiths." The introduction is by our Executive Editor, Peter
Howe. While the still photographs in the essay depict Vietnam at
peace, in our streaming video interview that accompanies the story,
Philip talks about his work while Vietnam was still at war. It is an
inspiring look into the heart of a master photojournalist.


With summer upon us, in our second feature, "Hollywood Splash," we
decided to just jump into the pool with photographer Veronique Vial,
who has chronicled the aquatic high jinks of her Hollywood celebrity
friends as they cool off at home.


For the past five years, Amy Bowers, who became Amy Marash when she
married ABC "Nightline" correspondent David Marash, has done an
incredible job of editing our "Dispatches" section. She has built a
loyal following of photographers who have contributed stories from
all the news fronts of the world. Since she moved to New York, Amy
has become ever busier doing freelance production for NBC and
traveling around the world with Dave. She realized she could no
longer handle the "Dispatches" section on a monthly basis. We will
miss her. But we are pleased to announce the appointment of Marianne
Fulton as our new "Dispatches" editor. Marianne has been a senior
editor for The Digital Journalist since 1998, and is the former
curator of the George Eastman House. She wrote a seminal book on
photojournalism, "Eyes of Time: Photojournalism in America," for
which she was named Person of the Year in the Leica Medal of
Excellence competition. She has lectured worldwide on 20th-century
photography and photojournalism. She served twice as judge for
Pictures of the Year (the only curator to do so) and for Women in
Photojournalism. Fulton is on the advisory board of the W. Eugene
Smith Memorial Award. We welcome her to this new position.
Contributors to our "Dispatches" section can reach her at
[email protected].


In her first "Dispatches" section, Marianne has chosen three stories:
a report from Uganda by Francine Orr; Spencer Platt, a regular
contributor, from Getty Images talks about his experiences in
Bolivia; and Lucian Perkins contributes his diary from a major
project he did for The Washington Post on Finland.


History was made in photojournalism during the recent subway and bus
bombings in London. For the first time, both The New York Times and
the Washington Post used front-page pictures that were made with
camera phones. Dennis Dunleavy, assistant professor of Journalism at
Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., looks at what this
breakthrough means as we create a new generation of
"citizen-journalists."


We are proud to announce that our Editor for Europe, Horst Faas, is
this year's recipient of the German Society of Photography's
prestigious Dr. Erich Salomon Award. The award honors Horst's
extraordinary career as a photo reporter/picture editor, as well as
his charitable projects, such as the IMMF workshops that he organizes
and finances for young photographers (see last month's Digital
Journalist). To coincide with the award, a comprehensive exhibit of
Horst's lifework opened June 3 in Frankfurt, Germany. "Visible War"
celebrates his incalculable influence on modern photojournalism. The
curators of "Visible War," Michael Ebert and Julia Wallstab, report
on the remarkable man, and exciting history, behind the exhibit.


In this month's issue, "E-Bits" Editor Bev Spicer takes on the
subjects of the past, present and future. She presents EPIC 2014, a
futuristic video about the fusion of media and information systems
tailored specifically for each individual. She also touches on the
issue of transparency, and reminds us of past efforts to increase
security with the classic, and now laughable, U.S. Civil Defense
film, DUCK AND COVER.


Our regular columnists, Bill Pierce, Terry Heaton, Mark Loundy, Ron
Steinman, Chuck Westfall and Jim Colburn provide, as always,
thoughtful and provocative reading.


There are two journals in "Assignment Sheet" for your reading
pleasure this month. Both are the work of a pair of retired news
photographers. Actually, the first contributor is Tom Hubbard, who is
also an emeritus professor at Ohio State School of Journalism and
Communications. His journal, "A Lens on an American Icon," goes back
to the early '60s and talks about covering a press conference with
the renowned American poet, Robert Frost. The interview grew
belligerent and Hubbard tells us about the two different Robert Frost
that he encountered in front of his lens that day. Dick Kraus,
retired Newday (Long Island, N.Y.) photographer, goes back to the
same era in his ongoing "Through a Lens Dimly" memoir with "Frootz
and the Gang." Kraus recalls the zany crew of news photographers with
whom he worked in those Damon Runyonesque days when newspaper
photography was a lot more fun.


The Digital Journalist will be at the Visa Pour L'Image festival in
Perpignan at the end of August, and we invite you to stop by and see
us at the booth we are sharing with The Digital Railroad.


We hope you enjoy this issue.

Dirck Halstead
Editor and Publisher
[email protected]

 

Hood Man and Leash Girl: Some Cartoons are Not Always About Being Funny

In the weeks following the release of pictures taken by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison showing the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners in April 2004, political cartoonists from around the world used the images as inspiration for political commentary.

As noted in the online edition of Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper, “The raw cruelty of American troops was captured in photograph, cartoon and print. Publications representing a wide spectrum of political opinion and ideological orientation graphically described the gruesome details of the abuses inflicted on the detainees by their American captors.”

The grainy pictures of a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his private parts or the image of a US soldier dragging an Iraqi prisoner by a leash signified the symbolic tensions rendered by cartoonists that soon became emblematic of the scandal.

Sontag (2004) notes, “Photographs have an insuperable power to determine what people recall of events, and it now seems likely that the defining association of people everywhere with the rotten war that the Americans launched preemptively in Iraq last year will be photographs of the torture of Iraqi prisoners in the most infamous of Saddam Hussein's prisons, Abu Ghraib.” 

Moreover, activist and artist Eric Millikin (2004) argues, “I think the power in the Abu Ghraib prison photos lies in the fact that those pictures totally destroyed the last remaining rational for the war… Those photos woke a lot of people up. That's sort of the testament to the power of visual arts, isn't it? When the stories were just trickling out, nobody really cared, but damn, when there are photos...”

Political cartoonists abstract visual messages signified in news images by tapping cultural meaning through satire, irony, sarcasm and parody. According to Newsweek magazine’s education program website, “Political cartoons are visual commentaries on the news.

Cartoonists use techniques like caricature, irony and symbolism to comment on recent events.” At the same time, cartoonists discover inspiration for their drawings from reading and viewing the news.

For Ozga (2005), “The content in political cartoons – no matter how complex the symbols may be – are always reductive, boiling an issue down to its essence, then boiling down that essence even further and making a strong point about it.”

For many editorial cartoonists, the actual images showing the abuse of prisoners symbolizes something greater—something contradicting the values and expectations of democracy.

When looking at the political cartoons rendered from the images of prisoner abuse in Iraq we are not only examining a moment in history, but also a series of dramatic anecdotes articulating widely held values, beliefs and concerns for humanity. For cartoonist Kirk Anderson, “A widely seen news image becomes a shorthand for larger issues, and you can communicate quicker with less reliance on words.”

In some sense, the political cartoon through a blend of humor and art attempts to capture our attention in order to push us toward reconciliation, resolution and an appreciation for the human condition. Anderson contends:

“Editorial cartooning communicates through visual images, and so it needs a shared visual language with the reader…. In the case of the abuse images, I was stunned & disgusted like everyone else. Because the photos elicit such a visceral reaction, they're perfect for adapting to a cartoon.”

Artist John Sherffius suggests, a “striking image combined with a clear, strong point of view make the most powerful editorial cartoons. Often, by altering those images slightly, editorial cartoonists can (hopefully) make meaningful political commentary. For instance, the image of a hooded prisoner at Abu Ghraib who stood upon a box with electrical wire attached to his arms, has been in many editorial cartoons.”

Further, editorial cartoonist Mark Streeter believes, “Powerful and widely-seen news photos or still-video captures, such as the ones from Abu Ghraib prison, give an editorial cartoonist a great starting point for his or her own visual commentary on the story. We often – some would say too often – rely on cliché, familiar cultural images and iconography as shorthand to grab the reader's attention and make our point quickly.”

Streeter continues:        

Dramatic pictures such as the hooded prisoner in an almost Christ-like pose or the Leash Girl become instant icons. You know you're going to draw it. Half your job - what to actually draw today – is done.

Then comes the hard part – what  are you going to say with it? Interestingly, these images that shock and haunt us today, will often quickly become the clichéd and trivialized images that we'll use  all too often to illustrate some other issue tomorrow.

Not unlike photo editors singling out a particular photograph based on content, aesthetics and context, cartoonists aim for creating images with the highest levels of visual impact.

At the same time, Jeff Koterba comments that as events unfold the decision to illustrate the perspective of the day may give way to another reality.

Koterba suggests:

"The images of prisoner abuse have impacted my work in much the same any over-exposed image at the moment does. The advantage of having those images replayed 24-7 allows me to refer to those photos in my cartoons without having to explain what the issue is. Same was true of September 11....and to a lesser degree, any number of the images that we see on a regular basis. The problem comes when every other cartoonist is also working from the same image and thus, originality suffers--everything starts to look the same... Oh, here's the popular image of the day," says the cartoonist. "I must do something with that."

It's a double-edged sword, really. Political cartoons do not merely point out major problems, but also serve to reinforce norms and values in society. Political cartoons represent a form of expression which mediate the reality of a word/image culture by “summing up” the action through immediacy and abstraction.

When looking at the political cartoons rendered from the images of prisoner abuse in Iraq we are not only examining a moment in history, but also a series of dramatic anecdotes articulating our common concerns and values. In some sense, the political cartoon through a blend of humor and art attempts to capture our attention in order to push us toward reconciliation, resolution and an appreciation for the human condition.

Ultimately, as controversial political cartoonist, Ted Rall, understatedly hints, “The purpose of a political cartoon is to stimulate discussion.”

Political cartoons, therefore, signify a visually abstracted reaction or response to the realism provided in news images—images that often initiate, frame, shape and foment debate in the public sphere.

References:

Scoffing at ‘sand-niggers’: The storm over images of Iraqi prisoners tortured by US occupying forces engulfed the Egyptian press. Gamal Krumah. Al-Ahram, May 2004.

What have we done? Susan Sontag. Guardian/UK, May 24, 2004.

Cutting up the dead: An interview with Eric Millikin. Joe Zabel. Webcomics Examiner, June 2004.

Extras!: The year in political cartoons. Newsweek Education Program, June 2005.

Political cartoonists, the endangered species. Matt Ozga. Recount, March 21, 2005.

Martin J. Medhurst and Michael A. DeSousa. "Political Cartoons as Rhetorical Form: A Taxonomy of Graphic Discourse." Communication Monographs, 48 (1981): 197-236.

Edwards, Janis and Carol Winkler. "Representative Forms and the Visual Ideograph: The Iwo Jima Image in Editorial Cartoons." Quarterly Journal of Speech, August 1997: 289-310.

Dennis Dunleavy. Interview with Kirk Anderson. Personal Correspondence, June 2004. Dennis Dunleavy.

Interview with Mark Sherrifus. Personal Correspondence, June 2004. Dennis Dunleavy.

Interview with Jeff Koterba. Personal Correspondence, June 2004. Kenneth Burke.

A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. 1969, page 46.  Pat Tillman.

Ted Rall. Rallblog. May 3, 2004.

Camera Phones Prevail: Citizens Shutterbugs and the London Bombings

Many years ago I found a cartoon of a tourist visiting hell. I think it may have come from the New Yorker, but it could have been Gary Larson's Far Side as well.

In the cartoon there is a tourist standing in line at the gates of hell with the devil standing proudly above the crowd in a sort of pose reminiscent of Napoleon. The line of people waiting to get into hell winds around through smoke, ash and flame. Then there is the tourist toward the back with his camera raised and pointed at the devil. I still chuckle a bit when I think about this cartoon and the increased advance of the digital camera and camera phones in society.

For the past year, I've been predicting how the camera phone will profoundly change the way people receive and mentally process news. I have often times seen this trend as something that is to come--something in the future--but I was wrong. 

The future is here, now. The future came with the Abu Ghraib prison Scandal, the devastation of the tsunami in the Pacific last year, and now without question, London. The digital camera phone is the future and we have much to learn from this emerging technology.

There are now some 192 million cell phones being used in the U.S. and nearly 20 percent of them have cameras attached. In fact, Tony Henning, managing editor of the Mobile Imaging Report is estimating that more than 300 million camera phones will be sold this year alone. If true, camera phones will out pace the sale of digital camera by nearly 30 times greater.

The SmartMob blog is a good place to track what is happening with this new technology.

In London, during the attacks on the transit system, camera phones provided some of the most intense and immediate imagery from the scenes. The pictures were made by citizen shutterbugs, average people with an interest in sharing what they have experienced with others through email messages.

Cian Donovan, according to the New York Times, went down into the subway with a cellphone shortly after the blast and uploaded them to his Flickr page. Now the world can see Donovan's images.

In fact, the 7/7 Community, formerly the London Bomb Blast Pool as well and the London Moblog sites contain hundreds of images from the attacks.

Furthermore, the BBC obtained images from citizen shutterbugs and posted many of them to their news site following the incident. One well composed and technically clean image was shot by an office worker looking down upon the destruction of a double-decker bus.

Many times these images are sent to family members first and then later find their way into the river of data that become public information. At times, some of these images are "picked up" by the mainstream media and disseminated as "real" news, which of course they can be.

Matea Gold of the Los  Angeles Times reported that  "Because tight security prevented news crews from quickly reaching the bombing sites, the cellphone footage was all that was immediately available from underground. Its instant embrace by traditional news networks underscored how an evolving technology can take on new and unexpected roles."

Forbes' Zachary Seward reported in "Phone Offer Snapshot of Terror":

....Even as photojournalists hit the streets to document the aftermath of the attacks, camera photos and video remained the most vivid illustrations of what had occurred. One video on the BBC showed an orderly but tense evacuation from a smoke-filled subway car; a shot of passengers walking along illuminated train tracks was the top photograph at NYTimes.com for several hours yesterday.

As was the case in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, digital images and the Internet have circumvented the systems of control placed on society in the information age.

The camera phone is rapidly changing our visual landscape through its immediacy and interactional qualities. It is also changing the nature of how news is gathered and consumed.

In modern times, society has come to depend primarily on trained professionals to report what constitutes the news. News, in this configuration, however, has values which  has value reporters, editors and photojournalists learn to prioritized, classify and categorize. Information is placed in a hierarchical order based on values such as relevancy, consequence, proximity, prominence, novelty and other values.

Washington Post Staff Writer, Yuki Noguchi reports in a story Eyewitness Journalism: Camera Phones Lend Immediacy to Images of Disaster:

Camera phones, once a novelty, now outsell digital cameras by about 4 to 1, according to analyst data. As more sophisticated phones and higher-speed networks have become available, wireless companies have recently started offering video camcorders on their phones that can nearly instantly transmit moving pictures over e-mail or onto the Internet.

What this means potentially is that everyone is a visual communicator with a camera phone -- everyone has the potential of contributing to shaping our perceptions of major and minor events happening around the world.  As Noguchi observes, "The availability of the cameras, combined with the ability to transmit pictures and text instantaneously, is enabling the world to view news with nearly the immediacy of a victim or eyewitness."

Is having an army of citizen shutterbugs running fast and loose with digital  cameras and camera phones a good thing for society? Is the ability to make and transmit images immediately after an event has occurred good for democracy, free speech, free will?

I think so... I really think so.

I believe camera phones have the potential of providing yet another stream of information that can be used to help people understand, interpret, make sense of, and cope with the life and all its complexities.

In an interview with the Associated Press following the release of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse photos last year, Washington Post Magazine photo editor, Keith Jenkins, commented:

“With the technology now, the amateur photographer is as capable as a professional journalist and is operating with the same tools: Digital camera, laptop and an Internet connection.”

At the same time, make no mistake about it, camera phones will become part of a reporter's toolbox for information gathering in the future. Photojournalist will carry them to communicate with editors immediately by sending digital snap shots of what they see before actually working with more professional cameras. Reporters will use camera phones to provide graphic designers on-the-scene visual references for information graphics and other visuals to package a story.

Bruce Rutledge (2003) argues:

Welcome to 21st century journalism, where citizens armed with camera phones can instantly become reporters -- or publishers.

Today?s mobile technology means you no longer need to be at a desk -- or even own a computer -- to e-mail a photo to a newspaper, or to publish an online magazine or blog. Now you can publish text and photos directly to the Web -- or send them to your local paper -- from a camera-enabled phone."

Paddy Holahan, CEO of NewBay Software, predicted two years ago that what happened in London with camera phones reporting the news was only a matter of time.

For Holahan:

"It won't be long....before "some globally significant event will be reported by an amateur camera phone blogger who takes a picture, provides a comment and publishes it to their personal phoneblog before professional reporters can do so."

At the same time, folks like Al Tompkins on the Poynter Institute website questions the efficacy of news operations who use camera phone images from citizen shutterbugs.

According to Thompkins: "There are tons of questions about how and whether newsrooms should publish or air such images:

    •     How do you know the image is authentic?
    •     What do you know/need to know about how the image was captured?
    •     What was the photographer's involvement in the incident he or she captured?
    •     How do you keep from encouraging people to take unnecessary or dangerous risks in order to capture a photograph?
    •     Will you compensate people for images? How will you decide how much to pay?
    •     How much are you willing to compromise your standards of quality in order to use a cell image?
    •     How easy is it for people to send you images and how easy is it for you to use them?

All the questions aside, the bigger issue is how will journalism adapt to an onslaught of independent content produce by CSers (citizen shutterbugs)?

As Robert MacMillan of the Washington Post writes about citizen journalism in his column Random Access I am inclined to think that we have been witnessnessing for some time now a significant turn in the information age -- a turn toward not only the mass consumption of news from multiple sources but also the mass production of news from multiple sources.

MacMillian contends:

Citizen journalism is different. It often covers a wide territory from soliciting arts and entertainment coverage to providing the angle on the city council budget that the cub reporter might have missed.

The London attacks moved the trend to a new level. Web sites from the BBC's to the Guardian's provided eyewitness accounts, some showing up as little as an hour or two after the first bomb went off. Rather than relying on unfocused, rambling blog entries, the London papers and the Beeb ran pithy postings from the people who were there. They ran alongside the staff reporters' accounts and presumably with the same amount of editing.

How is the mainstream media responding to the deluge of images produced by CSers?

Will newspapers and television stations hire people just to sit in front of a computer to monitor all the photoblogs out there that might have images they can use?

As it now stands I do not believe that many of the individuals  producing images during the London bombings have not received any financial compensation for their efforts. Photo stringers typically receive between $75 - $100 for pictures of events, but this is different. Traditionally, amateurs who have captured an important news event with a camera have sold their images to news sources, sometimes for great sums of money.

How does having hundreds of camera phones at the scene of a bomb blast change the course of news gathering?

It is abundantly clear that the mainstream media will at first claim fair use of the images as they appear on sites like Flickr, Yahoo or Smugmug. They will encourage journalists not only to ask eyewitness if they have seen anything, but also if they might happen to have a camera phone in their pocket.

The mainstream media will now have to cull through thousands of news images that best fit their schema and purposes for determining what is news. Can you imagine what would happen now if an event like the attacks on the World Trade Towers occurred given the popularity of camera phones today?

What will happen when citizen shutterbugs start competing, as they already have, with news organizations for breaking news images?

Will there be a war of competition between media outlets in their lust for the most graphic and intense images produced by citizen shutterbugs?

Will citizen shutterbugs begin demanding money for their images?

What copyright issues are involved? 

How will the average citizen, an individual who might become the subject of some horrific act like the London bomb blasts or 911, react to a fellow passerby making images of them without permission?

What will happen when citizen shutterbugs become more sophisticated with the use of software like Photoshop that will allow for the greater temptation of digital manipulation?

Indeed, I think the London situation brings us into a brave new world where, at present, there are more questions than answers.

 

[Cameraphones] [Current Affairs] [Digital Camera]