On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 13:35 -0500, vvandew1@ithaca.edu wrote:

Hi Brian !

I'm a sophomore Journalism major at Ithaca College and for my Journalism Ethics class I am writing a paper about the ethical dilemmas with citizen journalism. I am focusing my paper on the posting of photographs from citizens verses what mainstream media posts as their photographs. My main example is the picture that Tearah Moore posted from inside Fort Hood during the shooting. I was hoping to get a quote from you concerning this because I know you have become very successful as a citizen journalist.

As I am in Scotland, I knew of the Fort Hood shooting; but, had to Google the name "Tearah Moore" for further background on your reference.

The link I ended up reading was:

http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/07/nsfw-after-fort-hood-another-example-of-how...

As laid out therein, both Moore and Hasan were in a position of quite, quite 'diminished responsibility'; the politely named unit-cum-medical-facility they were at was for people suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

This situation is a real dilemma; as a 'social' or 'professional' media organisation, does accuracy come before speed - or vice versa? In reality, what needs to change is the approach of the audience. If they flit like butterflies from one drama to the next, they learn nothing. And, don't follow up with the talking head opinion pages.

In the "fog-of-war" situation there, I would have questioned use of Moore's photos, duplicating her captioning, and whole approach to the situation. How many news services didn't join the dots, find out where the trouble was, and check if both she and Hasan were in-treatment? Could Moore be trusted to understand what obligations she'd agreed to in entering the services she was breaking?

I would suspect a dirty scramble to get a source, and damn the consequences to the source. This is quite different from the citizen journalism I engage in. Yes, I've used "shock" pictures, and taken from twitter.

Take this, [1] Wikinews' initial report of the Haitian Earthquake. I knew it was big at 7.0, I knew the area was ill-prepared, I picked the pictures for the followup [2]. There are just times when the view from on the ground trumps anything else [3].

[1] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/7.0_magnitude_earthquake_strikes_off_Haitian_coa... [2] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Details_emerge_in_Haiti_earthquake;_thousands_fe... [3] http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Haitian_earthquake:_in_pictures

My main questions are:

1. Because of the immediacy that the internet has introduced, citizen

journalists are able to post graphic images or whatever images they please. Do you think this is a bad thing? Why or why not?

As I said in response to your introduction - I've used graphic images. However, the situation with Moore was one where you might question the accuracy of non-photographic evidence.

I watched the "Balloon Boy" incident with bemused detachment - it seemed so unlikely that ridiculous homemade silver contraption has any passenger, child or otherwise. Both conventional and 'citizen' media failed to get their respective asses in gear and ask a physicist.

2. Do you think that citizen journalists should have to abide by some

moral code when deciding whether to post a picture or not. Explain.

In the public interest.

And, for a curt explanation; "Context is everything". Professional, or would-be, you have to accurately attribute the origin of a photo. Where there is an element of "trust me" to obfuscate the sourcing, you should have looked into the reliability of the source.