Citizen Journalists Are Losing Out On Lucrative Cash Payments As They Give Away Their Pictures For Free

Philip Stone March 3, 2009

You’ve got to hand it to news organizations – they encourage citizen journalists to send in all their news pictures with the promise the good stuff will get published or get on the air, and their cost for those pictures of the day’s breaking news is absolutely zero. Not like the good old days when they could afford to pay fortunes for exclusivity.

A good example came from last week’s crash of a Turkish airliner just short of Amsterdam Airport. Within minutes passing motorists had shot dramatic camera phone still pictures and video of the plane broken into three sections and the stuff was up on instantly on Twitter for the world to see. And the world includes news organizations that immediately lifted those images paying absolutely nothing except perhaps giving some credit where credit was due.

And for the news organizations this was manna from heaven – for none of them happened to have a photographer or camera crew at the site when the plane came down – those first transmissions came from citizen journalists.

Now, in the good old days when everyone didn’t have camera phones and a motorist happened to be passing with a camera and managed to shoot a few frames, a phone call to a Sigma or Magnum or even an international news agency could be worth big bucks. The photo agencies knew how to sell to magazine publishers exclusively in every country and would rake in the really big money with the photographer getting a split.

The unknowing photographer might sell the frames for a fixed price and no revenue share and that’s when the agency really made out like a bandit. Remember the Air France Concorde crash back in July, 2000 in Paris? A couple of East Europeans happened to be passing by in their car, had a 35mm camera, shot a few frames, and sold the roll to Reuters for a fixed price. The news agency put a couple of the frames on its international news pictures wire and the rest it started selling exclusively to magazines around the world. It did so well out of it that it actually paid the East Europeans more than it promised. Then a couple of days later the AP came upon, for a price, some video someone had shot and so the value of all the pictures came down, but for a couple of days at least Reuters did really well, not only financially but also with branding for everyone knew it had been the only agency with the crash pictures. 

But it is doubtful anyone did financially well on that Turkish airliner crash. It was all up there on Twitter for the world to see instantly. No exclusivity and perhaps more important to the news organizations in these hard times, no payment.

There may still be occasions when there are citizen journalist exclusives -- the most recent example being that News of the World exclusive of Michael Phelps inhaling marijuana via a water pipe. The picture was taken apparently with a camera phone at a private University of South Carolina party last November. It obviously took the picture taker a while to figure out how to make some money from it and the picture eventually showed up some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away in a tabloid London Sunday newspaper. It has not been said if money passed hands but for such an exclusive it is likely there is a particular South Carolina student today who has a healthy bank account.

Then there were pictures the UK’s Daily Mirror ran in 2005 allegedly of Kate Moss snorting cocaine, and there were the exclusive video that the UK’s ITN paid some £60,000 for the capture of a couple of alleged London suicide bombers, so there still is money to be made as long as the picture or video is exclusive, but in this day and age that is becoming increasingly difficult with so many camera phones on our streets and people willing to give away their pictures for free for the glory of credit – or perhaps not understanding the real value of what they might have.

And the news organizations make it very clear there is no payment for pictures sent into them. That has helped a lot of news budgets!

Remember when citizen journalism first raised its head that the news organizations said it was not for them – one couldn’t trust the content coming from people not on staff -- well, those days are long gone. The fact now is that first word on most of the past 12 month’s big breaking news where the media has not been forewarned has not come from the news agencies but rather from Twitter. The social networking site limits messages to just 140 characters, so one certainly doesn’t get the full story, but it’s good enough for the bulletin that something has occurred. The first the world knew last year of the Chinese earthquakes for some hours was via Twitter; the first the world knew about the Turkish airliner crash was via Twitter, and there were plenty of similar news breaks in between.

But can Twitter be trusted? Can you go with breaking news based on a Twitter alert? Richard Quest on his CNN program Quest Means Business raised that very question. He accepts Twitter is there – he is actually on Twitter – but can news organizations, he asked, really trust what passes on the various social networks as news without the benefit of professional editors. Certainly with the Twitter alerts in the last year where there was smoke there certainly was fire.

Perhaps news organizations need to revert to that old news agency stand-by, the editor’s advisory, except that instead of advising editors you are advising the world at large. For instance, what is wrong with the scroll line on the international cable news networks saying something like: “We are checking multiple reports on Twitter of an airliner crash at Amsterdam Airport.”

More than 30 years ago when this writer was a young UPI bureau manager based in Stockholm he learned that just because everybody else reports something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true, and an editor’s advisory can be worth its weight in goal.  An Aeroflot plane had been hijacked to Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport. All the other news agencies subscribed to the domestic Swedish news agency but UPI didn’t, so for breaking news UPI’s reporters kept their the ears glued to the radio – in those days not much Swedish TV until the evening.

With the announcement that the airliner had landed at Arlanda the other agencies were full of details taken from the Swedish agency; to compete the UPI manager decided to send a correspondent to the airport – it was about an hour away by taxi, rush-hour,  and given Swedish taxi fares there went the news expense budget for the month! Meanwhile the remaining reporter in the office continually phoned people at Arlanda while the bureau manager writing the story with details yelled over to him.

And then came the moment every news agency manager dreads -- suddenly the message wire bells started to ring non-stop. Messages from the New York International desk, messages from the London editing desk that AP, AFP and Reuters were all reporting the hijacking was over. “Where is our version?” they demanded. Now this was in the days when there were no such things as mobile phones. Suddenly people at Arlanda weren’t picking up their phones, the correspondent hadn’t called in; it was getting very close to manager hara-kiri time. And then the correspondent called – he was on site, watching the plane, food was being taken on board, the hijacking definitely was not over.

So UPI’s latest lead was right and everyone else was wrong but how to tell the world that? And that’s where the editor’s advisory came in. The bureau manager quickly typed it up along the lines of: “Editors -- We are aware that other news agencies are reporting the hijacking at Arlanda Airport is over, but our correspondent at the airport reports that is not the case. We shall file a new lead shortly (signed) UPI/Stockholm”

And within seconds the message wire bells stopped ringing. The correspondent fed the bureau manager as much “color” as he could – “men wearing white overalls were walking  up the SAS staircases parked at the front of the plane  to hand over the food…” to show UPI really was on site  -- the byline switched to the correspondent with an Arlanda dateline -- and at the end of the day UPI owned that story.

So, how did the others get it wrong? For reasons never learned, the domestic Swedish agency had reported the hijacking was over and all the other agencies took that as their bulletin the end had come. Because UPI was so cheap that it did not subscribe to the Swedish agency service it was saved from a horrible mistake on a major story. And it did bring some smiles because no doubt those news organizations that always insisted on two agency reports before they would go public with a story  -- such as the BBC World Service -- had been caught out, too, because little did they know that behind the scenes the AP, AFP and Reuters had all depended on the same single solitary source – the Swedish agency. Just goes to show no matter how foolproof you think your procedures there are always holes. 

An editor’s advisory is a useful tool. It can tell people what may be happening but has the option of saying the events are not yet confirmed, so if the reports do turn out to be false there can be a pat on the back there was no commitment, and if the reports were true at least the public knew early.

Citizen journalism is with us to stay – for that there can be no doubt. It means the days of exclusives on breaking news may be near over, but it also means more than ever that an editor’s job is even more important. And even CNN admits that the likes of Twitter are changing the news game.

''Everything needs to be deconstructed,'' David Bohrman, CNN's Washington bureau chief and senior vice president, told a recent University of Florida media conference. “Everything is going to be changing.''

Media in Spain - Diverse and Challenged – new

Media in Spain is steeped in tradition. yet challenged by diversity. Publishers hold great influence, broadcasters competing. New media has been slow to rise and business models for all are under stress. Rich in language and culture, Spain's media is reaching into the future and finding more than expected. 123 pages, PDF. January 2018

Order here

The Campaign Is On - Elections and Media

Elections campaigns are big media events. Candidates and issues are presented, analyzed and criticized in broadcast and print. Media is now more of a participant in elections than ever. This ftm Knowledge file reports on news coverage, advertising, endorsements and their effect on democracy at work. 84 pages. PDF (September 2017)

Order here

Fake News, Hate Speech and Propaganda

The institutional threat of fake news, hate speech and propaganda is testing the mettle of those who toil in news media. Those three related evils are not new, by any means, but taken together have put the truth and those reporting it on the back foot. Words matter. This ftm Knowledge file explores that light. 48 pages, PDF (March 2017)

Order here

More ftm Knowledge files here

Become an ftm Individual or Corporate Member to order Knowledge Files at no charge. JOIN HERE!