Comments on: Citizen journalism: Who controls it? http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/05/citizen-journalism-who-owns-it/ A collaborative effort to figure out the future of journalism. A project of Harvard University. Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:39:00 -0500 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Ayan Islam http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/05/citizen-journalism-who-owns-it/comment-page-1/#comment-15173 Ayan Islam Wed, 13 May 2009 21:36:48 +0000 http://www.niemanlab.org/?p=4852#comment-15173 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. :) 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. :)

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