Citizen Photographers Get Their Own Agency

Fueling the discussion about whether it’s ok for citizens to take photos of their fellow citizens’ suffering and makemoney from it, welcome to Scoopt: the citizen journalist’s photographic agency, selling mobile phone and digital camera pictures to the press and media:

Who will take tomorrow’s front page photograph – a professional press photographer or a passer-by armed with a cameraphone?

Virtually everybody now has a mobile phone, and virtually every mobile phone now comes with a camera. Britain on Britain supplementThis means that somebody, somewhere is in a position to photograph just about anything that happens on the planet.

If you photograph a newsworthy event, you could have a valuable scoop on your hands. Scoopt represents you, making sure the right people see your photo and ensuring that you get a good deal. Scoopt is simple. Scoopt works. Above all, Scoopt works for you. Join Scoopt today. Snap… Send… Sell…

With another major security alert in London going on as I write, it’s timely.

I know I’m fence-sitting, but I don’t have a view on this yet. It’s hard enough as a journalist being in the middle of carnage or lynchings and not doing anything about it, so I’m not one to throw stones. I suppose you do hope that in the situation you’re able to do both: chronicle the situation for a wider audience (think of how useful those moblog pictures of those caught inside the Underground helped us understand how awful it was for them down there, an empathy that will help unite citizens in grief, horror and determination to thwart the terrorist’s aims) and then help. But I know that’s easier said than done.

(Thanks, Graham. )