A businessman stops in front of the giant Christmas Tree in
New York
City's Rockerfeller Center to take a picture with
his camera phone.
Credit: Dennis Dunleavy, November 2006.
The Chronicle of Higher Education is linking to a story about cellphones and news content by The New York Times.
Photojournalism Leaps Into the Cellphone Age
Scott Carlson writes, "At first glance, this is technology news: Yahoo and the news service Reuters are going to recruit the general public as photojournalists — the public that is already armed with an array of image-producing devices, be they high-end digital cameras or simple cellphones."
Pictures from camera phones, taken by the general public can be uploaded to Reuters or Yahoo and then distributed to other news services.
Carlson suggests, "Technology news, yes. But it is also another stark reminder that the media are less us here in the newsroom talking to you, and more of you talking to each other. That shift carries responsibility with it. This is an issue for the liberal arts as much as anything."
If true, this trend supports the general theory that information is more about immediacy and quantity than it is about reflection and critical thinking. Camera phones, in this case, will bring new meaning to the old news phrase "Feeding the Beast."
In their rush to get more and more content into the public domain the question arises as to who will be responsible for editing and vetting this new flood of images. Chief among media shortcomings in recent years has been the lack of oversight in checking the veracity and fairness of images. Some new system will have to be put into place if the "Beast" can be trusted.