The Tools Of Citizen Journalism

UK TechCrunch posted an interesting profile of Demotix, a London-based startup that allows users to upload pictures (and soon video) that are in turn sold to news outlets.  The recent events around the Israel/Palestinian conflict were a perfect showcase of this type of user-generated content site (though, obviously, a tragic one).

Citizen Journalism isn’t new, nor are sites that allow anyone to upload photos for licensing.  But TechCrunch points out that other ventures suffered from being a bit ahead of their time.  Now cell-phone cameras are much more ubiquitous, allowing people to take and upload a photo within minutes.  Phone cameras are improving and now users have the ability to add wide-angle and macro lenses to them.

Add to that ubiquitous Wi-Fi plus mobile broadband in ultraportables and netbooks and people all over the world have more ways than ever to document important events.

The site’s name, Demotix, is derived from demotic — “of the people”.  I find it amazing and wonderful that people can use  mobile technology to democratize media coverage.