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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 requesting user captured media 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 yourpics@bbc.co.uk or via mms by dialling +44 (0)7725 100100.
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.
liqbase
In a huge advancement of citizen journalism, Reuters and Yahoo! are asking average people to be journalists
I see they're taking FOX News' lead then. FOX has been asking average people to be journalists for years.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The BBC has been doing this for ages in the "Your Photos" section of their site, which gets reused inside stories. I remember them doing it as far back as the London 7/7 bombings, because they had all the photos from the inside of the carriages.
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
This is a great way to get accurate and detailed photos of news events, especially those that take place quickly or happen in remote areas. Even with field offices all over the world, organizations like Reuters can't possibly have a photographer everywhere. When a newsworthy event takes place, chances are that someone with some capability to take a photo will be in the vicinity. I think the potential cash bounty for quality photos will encourage "citizen journalists" to participate.
Tornado sightings have worked this way forever. Bubba catches the twister on his video-recordin' machine, the local NBC affiliate pays him 100 bucks for the tape, and soon the whole country gets to see video of a funnel cloud snapping power lines a hundred yards away. CNN has recently been pushing a "Send, Share, See YOUR Stories on CNN" initiative, and now Yahoo and Reuters are jumping on the bandwagon. It's about time that the concept is catching on more broadly... I just hope it gets used for something more relevant than Britney flashing her hoo-ha.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Most comedy clubs have a policy of not allowing anyone to record the comedian's acts.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
Imagine being the poor sap that has to weed through all the crappy kitten photos and car accident photos that are going to be flooding in. There are sure to be some pictures of a huge dump some jackass deposited in a toilet and thinks it is newsworthy. The list of useless pictures that people will send in will probably overwhelm the few gems. I bet it won't last long.
I was getting ready to write a post on the dangers of fake pics and that I hoped there were safeguards in place to prevent this... but hey, I suddenly remembered that mainstream journalists have been doing this for awhile now, so no worries. Falsify away.
My readon this: For the most part, people won't be paid for their effort, and when they are, Reuters will decide if, when, and how much.
So if the for-profit company that takes money from your effort is not paying people, why would ANYONE send them juicy information, the best and most timely photos? (Other than corporate spin and marketing...) These suits do not understand human motivation at all. While many community/corporate models do work well - they work when the people who contribute significantly get something significant back for their participation in the community.
Stop letting your creativity be yoked by the merchants.
The only possible reason for people to upload is an individul's desire for the story/photo to get out - which puts even more bias on the distorted, biased coporate news process. Now everyone is "fighting" for what news is real - in an arena where people will always lose to the larger corporate profit motive.
Why wouldn't you send it to groups like Indymedia or other groups, collectives and nonprofits that have ideals more in line with the interests of individuals? Why wouldn't you post it to your own flickr account, craigslist, or make a blog post about it yourself? All these tools are available to anyone who can get the API working to upload it to Reuters, and work more in the individual's interest.
We no longer need merchants to control creative expression.
CNN launched a 'thing' like this too a while back (iReport, video)and it was laughed off the airwaves. They wanted you to "be the reporter!" and not pay you for your effort - while the whole time they make money off the ads your reports support. If people have a great story - post the video online with a site that allows you to share revenue from traffic, and includes real rewards for creating the content to those people who really create it.
Like genocide in Darfur or Paris Hilton's exploits.
I seem to remember a certain 1991 event which set off riots and a fairly major cultural shift, which would never have gotten out had there not been some bystander with a portable video camera handy. Since then tons of amateur videographers whipped out their camcorders whenever something newsworthy happened. Now we all have camera phones, so this is all just the natural evolution of that.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
... for a lot of "adorable kitten" stories.
Although this sounds like a neat idea in the beginning, just wait until it gets abused by the masses. Bye bye Yahoo! and Reuters.
Given the numerous problems Reuters has had with its own Middle East reporting, what controls are they going to put in place to ensure that these Citizen Journalists aren't feeding them fake pictures?
Crow T. Trollbot
There are two local Kansas City TV news stations that support consumer generated input and it is also featured on CNN. I'm sure there are other examples from other areas around the US and the world. This is not exactly ground breaking technology.
Great, now we dont just have photographers to worry about, any poor sap can potentially be the one invading your privacy with things you dont want shown. Just wait till the Tabloids start asking for paparazi photos from ANYONE!
Users will not be paid for images displayed on the Yahoo and Reuters sites
This is so lame. Over in Sweden, major papers like www.aftonbladet.se have been paying $150 to $1500 for any picture that ends up being used on the site. The higher the hit-count the higher the bounty, but the base is $150 (1000 SEK).
Seriously, I'm sick and tired of "having" to see "news" about celebrities who are pregnant, dizzy, out shopping, picking up the newspaper from their front lawn, etc., etc., etc.
Sure, I could choose not to turn on the TV, choose not to read the newspapers, read newssites etc., but damnit - if we can get spamfilters for other crud, why not for this crud?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Was fired from the New York Mayor's office for his idiot "name badge" idea.
This is so bogus.
"Serenity Now, Insanity Later"
Lloyd Braun? Michael Richards? What is this, an episode of Seinfeld? Serenity now, insanity later.
You can't have an article mentioning Michael Richards and Lloyd Braun without some mention of procuring gum from Chinatown, can you?
Awesome.
tell you you cannot take pictures. There is no law preventing it no matter what they say. They are just using scare tactics. And people should police the police and push laws that help them do that. It is clear with all the recent "accidental" shootings and questionable use of tasers and the excuses use to defend the cops that something needs to be done to curb this activity.
Honest question: why is this good, but traffic cams and telescreens bad?
Where is the line between "good for justice/democracy/etc" and "invasion of privacy?"
In addition Bild does hardly any additional background checking and verification of images which leads to the publication of other people's intellectual property, funny images found everywhere on the internet, screen grabs of TV shows or sometimes even resubmissions of images previously featured in Bild with different captions. Unless Yahoo and Reuters get their fact checking straight this might have a higher signal to noise ratio than they'd expect and lots of potential for embarassment as well as lawsuits.
:/- spoon(_).
The BBC have been requesting pictures and video from members of the public for some time now. They have a couple of dedicated numbers set up, and also encourage people to email things through the website. I suppose they stand more chance of getting that killer photo with thousands of members of the public looking for it too.
The first time I saw this used was probably the 7/7 attacks in London - many of the first pictures came from mobile phones, and were much more effective at capturing the atmosphere around the photograph than many of the professional photographer's photos.
In a lot of Western countries it is assumed that there can be found a jury of people that haven't yet formed an opinion on some matter. Whether it is civil or criminal doesn't really matter, the issue is that whatever it is, they haven't heard about it.
What publishing cell phone camera photos and movies does is virtually eliminate the possiblity of finding anyone that hasn't been exposed to every possible detail, no matter what.
Another aspect of this is when an "eyewitness" account differs from the rather narrow view of the event presented by a camera. Which would be more likely to be believed? I suspect most people under 30 would unquestingly accept the camera view and people over 30 far more likely to give them equal weight if not be more likely to favor the human. Yes, human memory isn't perfect but neither is the interpretation presented by the cameraman.
And, it is very difficult to tell the difference in the "Internet Age" between something faked and the real thing in a photo when the time between it is taken and when it is old news is like 10 minutes. You either publish it immediately or it has zero value - because everyone else already put it on their web pages. The wire services, AP & Reuters, are having some pretty serious issues with this now, and it is likely just the beginning.
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, 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?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
I could see this as being a real cause for concern for privacy for celebrities. Celebrities are regular everyday people. I'd sure as hell get annoyed if a flock of morons was following me around with a cellphone or camera all day long. If some pro photographer isn't able to follow them around all day, why the hell should the public have the right to follow them around and take pics? Doesn't this fall in under some peeping-Tom or stalking laws? I think some of the pros are borderline on this already.
... how are you going to afford 5K for a lawyer?
Also, people should take caution as they're not Reuters/major media chain employees and are not afforded the same legal protections of Reuters employees. Take a naughty pic of Mrs. Celebrity for $50
low quality photos are extra easy to edit (as well as editing high res photos then making them look low quality to cover the unrealness) and always sell the best. Maybe they won't buy Oprah edited into a KKK march but anyone could seriously edit any photos taken from a cell phone. They better do video only or something, not that that's much harder to edit with CG and stuff. Stay tuned to Yahoo news for a video of racist, swastika T-shirt wearing Godzilla attacking Israel!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
http://www.cnn.com/exchange/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/photosubmit/
Any suggestions for a good video camera that doesn't have a webcam lens?
Why would anyone give away their IP to a for profit corporation so they can make thousands of dollars off the video and get nothing in return? The Michael Richards video has brought in millions of dollars to media corporations and the fool that gave it away has nothing.
With the eradication of the Fairness Doctrine, it has been a slow decline in the integrity of journalism. The idea that wire services are now asking people to provide content for them is testimony to the pathetic state of affairs in journalism.
I look forward to this going full circle, and wire services and news networks becoming completely obsolete in favor of citizens reporting the news to other citizens, devoid of heavy-handed corporate or political bias.
Given the numerous problems Reuters has had with its own Middle East reporting, what controls are they going to put in place to ensure that these Citizen Journalists aren't feeding them fake pictures?
Pretty simple, I suspect. They'll use the model that US radio stations have used since the dawn of the Top 40 list.
1. Station compiles list of songs that they will play
2. Station tells fans to call in their requests
3. Station ignores all requests for songs not on the list
4. Station puts requests for listed songs on the air as though they were spontaneous
5. Lather, Rinse, Repeat
6. Profit!
This deal could simply be a refinement of the model. To a large extent, the news stories are already determined. Not by some evil cabal -- I'm comfortable leaving my tinfoil hat at home -- but by whatever criteria they already use to determine what will be interesting to readers/viewers. The "innovation" is that they can use civilian-submitted pix and vids to flesh out the story. The story was already there, but now it has more truthiness. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
To give both radio stations and Reuters some credit, though... the faux-request model does give a station an idea of what new songs are percolating in the market, so sometimes the requests *do* matter. Similarly, Reuters & co can get an idea of what people are interested in reading about by looking for trends in the photo/video submissions.
But mostly, it's just going to be window-dressing to look like they're in on the hot new thing.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
You may recall in David Brin's book Earth, set in 2038 or so, the middle-aged and "old fogies" (i.e. us today in 30 years) have an unhealthy, obsessive, paranoid preoccupation with documentary surveillance (using the equivalent of cell phone cameras, but mounted in UV-protective glasses, I believe). The younger generation of the 2030s find it amusing and annoying. Seems like we are taking yet another path to living up to Brin's prescient vision of the future (sans voracious Black Hole and semi-sentient planet).
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
Obviously the price to pay for this is in the currency of entropy. You get a lot of interesting stuff at random, but there is mostly crap. The theory of large number will continue to work. I'm guessing, we'll end up celebrating banality and mediocrity more frequently, but we'll also get a finite number of macabre or surreal 6 to 15 sigma events recorded too, which will ultimately drive people-based photojournalism.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi