Just about every time I write about photo phones being a wonderful tool for journalists, I catch flak for it. (Just yesterday, fellow
E-Media Tidbits contributor
Vin Crosbie criticized me for such a statement I made.) But
here's a great anecdote as reported by
Lost Remote's
Cory Bergman that underscores why those critics are misguided (in my view). He writes: "After arriving on scene at the hospital after a chemistry lab explosion at a Seattle-area school, reporter
Jim Forman of KING-TV (my station) snapped a picture on his camera phone. Minutes later,
it appeared on KING5.com. An award-winning shot? Hardly. But ... instead of waiting for video to be shot, fed, and encoded, they posted the pic as soon as it landed in their e-mail, saving at least an hour."
Photo phones in the hands of journalists. It's largely about timeliness and being first on breaking news, not quality (though that will come as the technology evolves). In a case like this, a low-quality camera-phone shot may be the only thing a news organization has until a professional photographer can get his/her shots processed and edited.
I'm reminded of those grainy and poor-quality satellite phone video reports from embedded correspondents during the Iraq war. Sure, the images were terrible. But we all watched in awe as for the first time we could glimpse live into a military battle thousands of miles away.
