Read this.
“There surely can’t be a human being left in the civilised world who doesn’t know that cellphones must be switched off in hospitals, and yet not only did [Tearah] Moore leave hers on but she actually used it to photograph patients, and broadcast the images to the world. Just think about that for a second. Rather than offering to help the wounded, or getting the hell out of the way of those trying to do their jobs, Moore actually pointed a cell-phone at a wounded soldier, uploaded it to twitpic and added a caption saying that the victim ‘got shot in the balls’.”
Real journalists may decry this unsolicited citizen journalism, but too many are enablers—using amateurs’ mangled, irresponsible reports and buying their exclusive footage and images for real publications. People don’t turn to their cameraphone because they’re share-happy egotists, they do it because the actual press has an appetite for what they’re releasing, and, sometimes, will even pay for it.
