Week 7: On-the-go journalism and web 2.0

When bombs went off in Mumbai, the first thing I did was go to Flickr (click photo to see more) and YouTube to check photos and videos taken by people who might have witnessed it. These popular social networking websites now allow people to capture history. In today’s wired world, the unfolding of events can be documented almost instantaneously with technology. But can we describe this practice journalism?

Armed with a phone camera, I have been taking snapshots of events/people while on field since last year. But due to frustrating speeds of sending photos via today’s local mobile network, I still download these photos onto a PC before sending it to my editors. Perhaps this is the first step towards mobile journalism. (Also listen to the short podcast I did).

Mobile journalism involves Internet technology and telecommunications. Both are modern tools for delivering news on-the-fly. When I started working for an online publication six years ago, the standing order was to: “write for today and not tomorrow.” Today, that has changed to: “break the story now and add photos, videos and audio quickly.” Sounds like a lot of work? Yes it does. But since the Internet is multimedia, people expect more from journalists (who do not necessarily work for the online medium) to also produce photos, videos and audio. Mainstream media is now looking at hiring younger and more tech-savvy journalists to cover news because they understand readers' behavior today.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a blogger observed how fellow bloggers attending this big event have become source of “scoops” and “inside information.” Not every journalist could cover this event alone. But they have provided "just in time" information for mainstream media. He called it “instant journalism.” I simply call them “leads.”