Send us your photos: How the Net makes us all reporters

Nobody who uses the Internet or watches news programmes on TV can be unaware of the phenomenon of ‘citizen journalism’, found everywhere from personal blogs to sites like OhmyNews and Dan Gillmor’s Bayosphere to the BBC, CNN, Sky and every other news outlet where people are invited to send in photos, videos or eyewitness reports of any newsworthy event they happen to witness.

Journalist and website editor Bill Thompson discusses the likely impact of this new form of journalism on the mainstream media, attempting to place it in a historic context both technically and in terms of the way journalism has developed. He looks at the ethical issues which new forms of newsgathering and publication raise, both for contributors and for the news organisations which use their material, and consider how those training tomorrow’s journalists should respond.