Thursday, October 06, 2005
The public as journalists
As we saw with the recent London bombings, sometimes the most powerful images come not from journalists and media services, but from people who are involved and bystanders. The image of the No30 bus that was on every newspaper was taken by a passerby.
Spy Media is the first site that attempts to act as an intermediary between the public who take the images and the media services who use them. After all, just because we're not journalists, why shouldn't we get paid if we take a decent snap of an important event? and just to prove the mercenary nature of it all, SpyMedia of course will take a commission.
now that's all fine. business is business and it takes money to run these sites and I do believe the public should have a chance of being paid for good photography. but what happens if this really catches on, and instead of just groups of paparazzi we get mobs of phone-wielding citizens all desperate to take the best snap. I stopped to help at a car accident last week, partly because I know about bystander apathy and poor old Kitty Genovese (there's one to look up). I can't help wondering if this kind of craze might be one more thing that stops people acting in citizenly ways. instead of helping at car accidents, maybe people will just stop to take a picture instead.
As we saw with the recent London bombings, sometimes the most powerful images come not from journalists and media services, but from people who are involved and bystanders. The image of the No30 bus that was on every newspaper was taken by a passerby.
Spy Media is the first site that attempts to act as an intermediary between the public who take the images and the media services who use them. After all, just because we're not journalists, why shouldn't we get paid if we take a decent snap of an important event? and just to prove the mercenary nature of it all, SpyMedia of course will take a commission.
now that's all fine. business is business and it takes money to run these sites and I do believe the public should have a chance of being paid for good photography. but what happens if this really catches on, and instead of just groups of paparazzi we get mobs of phone-wielding citizens all desperate to take the best snap. I stopped to help at a car accident last week, partly because I know about bystander apathy and poor old Kitty Genovese (there's one to look up). I can't help wondering if this kind of craze might be one more thing that stops people acting in citizenly ways. instead of helping at car accidents, maybe people will just stop to take a picture instead.
Comments:
Hi Russell,
I just thought I’d just drop a line to say I really enjoy reading the posts on your blog. I'm definitely going to bookmark you! I totally agree with you that the general public should get paid for good pictures. I had no idea that such a site like spy media existed. I guess it’s a win-win situation for both the public and media houses. Though people shouldn’t forget that a life is way more important, and helping a person in need comes first.
By the way, I am Neil. Check out my blog it’s about Football, my views on players, clubs, leagues and so on.
Since you’re really into blogging, I thought I’d ask you to try this personal blogging software called Qumana. It’s got amazing features that really add to the fun of blogging. You can drag-and-drop pieces of text and pictures while surfing and edit on the fly. It also has Technorati tags, which increase your visibility in a web search. Trust me, the number of people visiting my blog has sky rocketed, thanks to Qumana. So, a word of friendly advice: check out Qumana. You could download it from http://qumana.com/download.html it’s totally free!
Please do let me know what you think about the software.
Post a Comment
I just thought I’d just drop a line to say I really enjoy reading the posts on your blog. I'm definitely going to bookmark you! I totally agree with you that the general public should get paid for good pictures. I had no idea that such a site like spy media existed. I guess it’s a win-win situation for both the public and media houses. Though people shouldn’t forget that a life is way more important, and helping a person in need comes first.
By the way, I am Neil. Check out my blog it’s about Football, my views on players, clubs, leagues and so on.
Since you’re really into blogging, I thought I’d ask you to try this personal blogging software called Qumana. It’s got amazing features that really add to the fun of blogging. You can drag-and-drop pieces of text and pictures while surfing and edit on the fly. It also has Technorati tags, which increase your visibility in a web search. Trust me, the number of people visiting my blog has sky rocketed, thanks to Qumana. So, a word of friendly advice: check out Qumana. You could download it from http://qumana.com/download.html it’s totally free!
Please do let me know what you think about the software.
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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