List of citizen journalist websites from around the worlkd. Includes the 'independent agency for citizen photojournalists' and AFP's sell/share citpj website.
Is it really possible to make money as a citizen photojournalist? It's a question that must have passed through the mind of every wannabe news photographer. Anyone can now earn money from stock photography. Persuasion, a portfolio and word-of-mouth can bring in occasional event commissions. But photojournalism? That means selling to news editors, and when it comes to buyers, they're perhaps the pickiest bunch of all.
Do We Need Photojournalists? Plus Lost Art of Black & White
So if you have a hoard of amateurs shooting photographs, do you need professional photojournalists? I want to use our SoCon08 event at Kennesaw State University as a little test, so you, not I, can answer that question.
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Photojournalism today
Phil Coomes | 09:20 UK time, Friday, 14 August 2009
Phnom Penh, Cambodia by Christine Spengler / Sygma / CorbisThe world of photojournalism is in a state of flux. In recent times, two of the industry's most respected agencies have run into trouble. Last week, the financial problems at the Gamma photo agency in Paris came to light and another one-time giant of the industry, Sygma, also closed its doors to new photographers a few years ago following its acquisition by Corbis.
'The dedicated cit-j agency model isn't the way forward'
Posted: 09/02/09 By: Kyle MacRae
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Profile picture of Kyle Macrae Scoopt, the 'citizen journalism' photo agency I co-founded in 2005 and sold to Getty Images in 2007, is no more. On a personal level, that's a little sad: like losing a child, albeit an errant one that left home long ago.
But, as a business decision, I understand Getty's move completely: fundamentally, the Scoopt model doesn't work.
That's not to say that people don't want to sell their newsworthy images; many of them do. Nor is to say that the mainstream media has little appetite for such pictures; it most certainly does (note, that's newsworthy pictures we're talking about, not 24,000 snapshots of snow). But it is to say - in my personal but rather battle-weary opinion - that the dedicated cit-j agency model isn't the way forward.
While it's a no-brainer to say (as I did endlessly) that whenever news breaks there's likely to be a punter with a cameraphone on the scene before a pro, the chances of that punter already being a member of your agency, or even having heard of it, are vanishingly small.
Bono, who is usually meticulous in how he manages his personal brand, strategically shrouding it with selflessness, passion, vision, mystery, and a bigger-than-life conviction for positive global change, potentially underestimated or simply didn't understand how Social Media has re-architected the rapid distribution of information and content.
Story on US Air crash in Hudson and how a picture uploaded on Twitter immediately by a member of the public was the first to be broadcast on any media outlet.
Introduction to a series of reports hosted by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard on citizen journalism, from Winter 2005. Includes articles from BBC world service director Richard Sambrook and Santiago Lyon and Lou Ferrara from AP
november 30, 2007 by Jean Yves Chainon in Editor's weblog - outlines some failing citj business models. Mentions Backfence, Steve Outing, Steve Boriss,
Guardian article about Scoopt. Describes failings of Scoopt, highest purchase price Scoopt received-£2000, McRae states that BBC robbed Scoopt of income.
This page featured the draft versions of the chapters of the book by the New Media, Old News: Journalism and Democracy in a Digital Age. The book is the first major publication arising from the Leverhulme funded research project 'Spaces of the News', designed to investigate the nature of news production in a digital age
Newsletter profiling Scoopt's open letter to Flickr members so that they can link tagged photos to Scoopt accounts that they sign up for. The tagging allows Scoopt to "acquire" the photographs and use them for their distribution.
Photographs of a man accused of the attempted murder of a photographer in Mozambique, Africa, have been released.Photographer Kypros Kyprianou (pictured), who grew up in England, claims 'bandits' tried to kill him in a remote African villagePicture credit: Copyright Kypros Kyprianou