Doubts about 'citizen reporters'

John Naughton comments in the Guardian on this "new era in journalism".  Excerpt:

Can I be alone in having mixed feelings about all this? I think it was Heidegger who said that 'technology is the art of arranging the world so that we don't have to experience it'.

I find it astonishing - not to say macabre - that virtually the first thing a lay person would do after escaping injury in an explosion in which dozens of other human beings are killed or maimed is to film or photograph the scene and then relay it to a broadcasting organisation.

Especially when one realises what was in this 'amateur' material. Some of the cameraphone video clips sent to ITV News, for example, were so graphic as to be 'unusable', according to the channel's editor. I haven't seen the clips, so can only imagine what they contained.

Link: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | John Naughton: Why I have serious doubts about the 'citizen reporters'.

See also: picturephoning.com: Round up on Articles and Opinion Pieces on London Bombings.

Via Smart Mobs.