Citizen photojournalism: professionals and amateurs on the same page

Posted by Marion Geiger on March 19, 2009 at 11:17 AM

Following the trend of the growing citizen photojournalism websites, Katharina Borchert, WAZ's new media managing director plans on launching an online pro-am photography service in which professionals and amateurs can pitch their photos to be used by WAZ and other regional media groups looking for local coverage. Other websites that work similarly are Citizenside, Demotix The Observers, and WeSay, although The Observer and WeSay function more as blogs than as an agency service.

"It's an interesting experiment and a great opportunity to tie the community closer to you paper online," said Borchert to Journalism.co.uk.

Citizen photojournalism is growing at an opportune time. While newsrooms are reorganizing and cutting back on staff, it becomes more and more difficult for them to have photographers present at every newsworthy event. Photo distribution and marketing websites are a more budget friendly alternative for newspapers to buy photos from citizens and professionals alike.

The bar has been set quite high for professional photojournalists. They are facing exponentially higher competition amongst themselves as newspapers steer away from hiring contracted photographers. Anybody can take a picture with all kinds of gadgets today, making for cheaper or even free photo access. Even prize-winning veterans like Anthony Suau cannot find regular work as he said in an interview with PDN.

Websites like Citizenside and Demotix, could be a solution for photojournalists looking for ways to disseminate their photos and still get payed for them. It is a new level of freelancing and although they are competing with citizens, at least the opportunity to compete exists.

Source: Journalism.co.uk, PDN, Citizenside, Demotix