Is paying our photographers and reporters against the spirit of citizen-journalism?
Given the success of Wikis, Creative Commons and open-source, it is tempting to see the future of journalism in free-to-edit, unpaid websites. These sites, such as NowPublic, are popular but have been criticized for being opinion-driven and derivative. You can judge for yourself the standard of articles on such sites, but what is undeniable is that only a small minority of stories are based on first-hand new information. Original journalism is in short supply.
In recent years, virtually all major news organizations have incorporated some user-generated content into their publications, programmes and websites. CNN has i-Report, the BBC asks users to Have Your Say, and Reuters has teamed up with Yahoo to feed it citizen-produced content. However, these projects are dependent on photographers giving away their content for free, whether in charity or ignorance. Their business model is based on citizens’ willingness to surrender their copyright.
Some citizen-journalism agencies demand exclusive rights over images and pay a minimum to the photographer.
One user came to Demotix after trying out other agencies. Tanya was delighted to hear she had sold one of her photographs through a subsidiary of Getty Images. But when her cheque arrived she was surprised to find it was for only $0.75.
Demotix believes in intellectual property and that photojournalists should be paid for their work, whether they are professional or amateur. We are bringing citizen-journalism up to professional levels, and splitting the proceeds with the photographers.
Our logic is simple. The better the standard of photojournalism we receive, the more we can charge our media clients and pay our contributors - this will, in turn, encourage more people to take up journalism and produce better work. In this way, Demotix aims to create a ‘virtuous circle’ of citizen-journalism, which will have especially positive effects in places of the world without a free press and where selling a photo could become a crucial source of income.
Open-source, creative-commons licensed reporting is great, and it can coexist with remunerated citizen-journalism. We believe that quality journalism must survive, and that it’s worth paying for.
What do you think?