Citizen journalism: Who controls it?
A cautionary tale with great photos: the story of Stephen Mallon and his exclusive up-close images of the salvage of Flight 1549 from the icy Hudson River.
Photo by Stephen Mallon
The caution comes from the fact that, in this era of shrinking independent news operations, the right to publish some journalism could be threatened, depending on who paid for it:
A lawyer for US Airways and its insurer A.I.G. told Mallon to remove the photos once again, arguing that the airline and insurer were Mallon’s ultimate clients… “US Airways hired AIG who hired the lawyer who hired [lead contractor] Soper and Son who hired Weeks Marine who hired me.”
Tim Windsor | May 13, 2009 | 8:30 a.m.
Tags: citizen journalism, copyright, law, photography
Interesting fact that I learnt the other day – if it’s newsworthy, a journalist can rightfully use photos to add more context to his story, however, the line does get blurred when a phototgrapher is hired to shoot photos on behalf of an agency.
It’s a double edged sword where Stephon Mallon was doing the world a great service by giving us an intimate look at a plane that was taken down by a flock of geese! However, depending on his contract, he probably has restrictions on what he could do with the photos, then again, it seems like the agency gave him some user rights if he felt comfortable enough to upload them to his website.
Ultimately, US Airways should have been stayed silent since it was free publicity for them. Especially when the plane crash occurred under some unusual circumstances.
In my opinion, no one can really control citizen/indepedent journalism. Mallon is lucky he’s knows the right folks to have gotten the best perspective. One could say he had “insider” information. :)