mapjd@lcc

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

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.

Compare the quality of stock-photo services. Here's a look at Corbis, one of the largest, and the micro-stock site iStockphoto.com.

Study from 2007 on 'hyperlocal journalism' - more from the perspective of web-editor, but with some useful information. "The rule in hyperlocal citizen journalism is that no one size or shape fits all. This study, funded by the Ford Foundation, sought to take a snapshot in time of a robust phenomenon - specifically, the development of hyperlocal community news sites - that is changing and growing week by week."

One of the web's oldest citizen journalist websites (founded in 2000), based in Korea but carrying news and pictures from citizen journalist around the world

The New Yorker's take on citizen journalism, from August 06.

Article focusing on the convergence of traditional news reporting and web2.0 style user-generated content, from MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium (February 2007)

Photo citizen journalism

This is the website for the Center for Citizen Media, a new initiative aimed at helping to enable and encourage grassroots media, especially citizen journalism, at every level.

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

Research paper from 2008 plotting the evolution of Flickr and examining it's emerging role as a community forum for disaster-related grassroots activity.

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.

Talks about start up citizen photojournalism sites that were eventually bought by AFP and Getty. Scoopt founder Kyle MacRae talks about the how the model of his site, Scoopt, fundamentally will not work.

The image was grainy, low quality and shot by a 17-year-old, most likely on a mobile phone. And, according to the London Times, it earned the photographer

WeSay.com is an online news site that hosts photographers of all skill levels and features their photos."