Janetnews.com Blog

Online agencies promise to help citizen photographers get paid

Scoopt, based in Glasgow, Scotland; Cell Journalist, based in Nashville, Tenn.; and Spy Media, in San Jose, Calif., all are hoping to represent this growing class of amateur photographers by letting anyone upload photos that are then peddled to media outlets.

Each service offers a different deal, but the idea is the same: Citizen photogs shouldn’t just give their work away on Flickr and to media websites; they deserve the same payment as professionals get. But these new services will have to prove that there are enough newsworthy photos to support such a service. And they’ll have the huge task of vetting and filtering material, while also trying to squeeze money out of increasingly cash-poor media companies.

Here’s the first word on the new Harry Potter film. It opens November 18.

Mixed reviews for new Potter film

The latest Harry Potter movie, The Goblet of Fire, has received mixed early reviews from critics.
It is the fourth film adaptation of JK Rowling’s book series and the first to have a UK director - Mike Newell.

US entertainment magazine Variety said the “excellent” film was “the darkest Potter yet” with “a climactic scene that does not disappoint”.

Harry Potter Books

Microsoft scans British Library

About 100,000 books in the British Library are going to be scanned and put online by software giant Microsoft.

The books, which are out of copyright, will be digitised from 2006 and put online as part of Microsoft’s book search service next year.

Microsoft is already working with the Open Content Alliance (OCA), set up by the Internet Archive, to put an initial 150,000 works online.

A separate global digital library plan by Google is also under way.

Donna and Janet on a London Streetcorner near the Holbert Underground station. I have NO idea why we were just standing there. Here’s a little background: It was our FIRST full day in London. We were really tired and we were giddy. That same night we thought we should go see the broadway show Mary Poppins. Boy, were we in for a surprise when Mary Poppins was NOT a spoonful of sugar, but more like a doseful of Ambien. This video shows Donna and me on a street corner, why, I’m not quite sure. Enjoy! More Europe is to come as I sort through our video.

The London bombings on both July 7 and July 21 have shown that average citizens know how to break a story. Cellphones are the new mobile newsroom.

Shaping the media with mobiles

By 21 July, the day of the four attempted bombings, and the arrest of the suspects a week later, a routine had been established. Everyone with a mobile phone or a DV camera knew the power of their images and eyewitness accounts - and what to do with them.

The BBC received 67 pictures and 13 videos on 21 July, and a further 20 pictures on the day of the suspects’ arrests. On Sky News, one woman gave a running commentary as police, through a loudhailer, tried to persuade one of the suspects to give himself up. On BBC Radio, another eyewitness was interrupted on-air by what sounded like explosions.

I thought this was an interesting article on how one man credits technology for quickly, almost instantly letting him know his friends around London were safe.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Connected world helps us cope

Thanks to the network, websites, e-mails, chat, mobile phones, instant messenger, I was able to reach out to my friends and colleagues, able to reassure myself, and able to feel confident that if something had happened to someone close to me then I would have heard.

Even after 9-11 we used technology, but think about how it would have been nice to have a camera/video cell phone and an already established blog. Blogs were around but we started to notice them a little bit more after people 9-11. It’s amazing how 5 years can make us even more technology savvy. It’s becoming a natural way of life and changing our way of communication.

As the Bombs blasted the London Underground, Londoners pulled through to document the tragedy with cell phone cameras. This is how our culture is changing. I instantly go to the Internet. We have instant access to information just minutes after a tragedy occurs. We do not have to rely on specific media, we can browse through blogs or personal web sites that have personal accounts about this event.

I agree with Tim Porter , who says that “The first-day story no longer belongs to newspapers - and hasn’t for a long time. It isn’t even the property of professional journalists any longer.”

So, when you see photos taken by the victims of the explosion, don’t think of them as victims as ,
Tim Porter pointed out in his blog, think of them as a reporter, reporting the truth.

Mobiles capture blast aftermath

Hundreds of mobile photos and several mobile videos have surfaced documenting the moments after the four blasts.

Blogs, photo sharing websites, online news sites, and TV news used their images in the minutes and hours immediately following the attacks.

Dan Gilmore talks with NYTimes.com about the importance of the citizen journalists: They are helping record history.

Witness Photos on Web Captured London Drama

“A lot of what’s being done by the citizen-journalist will be most useful as people start pulling together the best images and stories,” he said. “There was a cliché that journalists write the first draft of history. Now I think these people are writing the first draft of history at some level, and that’s an important shift.”

In January I was lucky enough to visit London for the first time. Today, I sadly saw where a bus blew up right across the street from the Tavistock hotel where I stayed and the Russell Square Underground, which I used daily,where one of the bombs detonated.

The area is called Bloomsbury, where the notable author Virgina Woolf lived in the late 19th to early 20th century. Nearby is the British Museum, known for their Reading Room and the British Library, which houses such items as the Gutenberg Bible. I spent two weeks in London and fell in love with walking Bloomsbury. I can not fathom the terror and fear that people must be feeling in that area.

The BBC is posting citizen accounts of the terrorist attacks. It’s citizen journalism at it’s best. There are several other news organizations posting citizen accounts and I’m sure Londoners are blogging.

London explosions: Your accounts