mapjd@lcc

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

Photo citizen journalism

One source : A citizen photojournalist site would make sense if there was only one. Photo editors could immediately add it to there daily scouting and verify if anything of interest has been put up. There are so many of them today, including Flickr and other photo sharing sites that it becomes impossible to find, if it exists at all, the right image. It is almost like knocking on everyones door and asking if they have an image. Extremely laborious and completely counter productive.

A website has been set up to help the new 'snaparazzis' sell their pictures to mainstream media. Is this ethical journalism, asks Roy Greenslade.

By A. D. Coleman The "New Documents" exhibition opened at New York's Museum of Modern Art on February 28, 1967, almost exactly a third of a century ago. Organized by John Szarkowski for the museum's Department of Photography, this show featured almost 100 prints by three relatively unrecognized younger photographers from the east coast of the U.S. - Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand - and came as a watershed moment in the evolution of contemporary photography. What exactly did this exhibition signify?

Clyde Bentley examines the concept of citizen journalism; from the dusty cave-dweller beginnings to Facebook to what the future holds for newsroom journalists. "Citizen journalism is no more a replacement for professional journalism than teabags are a replacement for water. Both can stand comfortably alone, but when combined they produce something quite wonderful."

Public journalism and investigative journalism need one another, and if we recognize that we have a chance of preserving our cherished First Amendment traditions and responsibilities. Article by Philip Meyer, a Knight Professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Citizen photo journalism outlet Citizenside has teamed up with FrontView Production to launch FrontView Report. The site is a collection of photos and videos from social, humanitarian and environmental activists who witness and record key events from around the world. "Some of them find in photography and video a powerful means to express and document their commitment and feelings," explains the summary on the site.

AllVoices does not have a member of staff editing the site; it relies purely on its proprietary algorithms and its community. Tareen described this as the "YouTube principle," and emphasised that producing an edited product was not the aim of the site, rather "our goal is to publish what people want to create and to provide multiple points of view."

'If you can find a way to filter the occasional hot image from everything else, [then citizen journalism has a future]. But the wider you seek and the more you solicit, the more resources you're going to have to throw at the filtering "challenge". So I think the suck-from-wherever approach has to be the way to go rather than a dedicated agency like Scoopt.'

BJP article about failings of Scoopt. Claims he asked Janis Krums, who shot the first Twitt pic of the Hudson River crash whether he would have rather had $100K or 100K hits.

We got a preview of how important citizen journalism is likely to become in developing countries when social media played a leading role in covering the China earthquake and the Mumbai terror attack.

Includes a photograph a citizen journalist took of a Mercedes packed with Propane gas that was to explode outside of a nightclub off Haymarket St. The photograph earned £20,000 for the photographer.

The venerable profession of journalism finds itself at a rare moment in history when, for the first time, its hegemony as gatekeeper of the news is threatened by not just new technology and competitors but by the audience it serves. Citizens everywhere are getting together via the Internet in unprecedented ways to set the agenda for news, to inform each other about hyper-local and global issues, and to create new services in a connected, always-on society. The audience is now an active, important participant in the creation and dissemination of news and information, with or without the help of mainstream news media.