Dan Gillmor has a good piece about why phone-based cameras and videocameras mean that professional photojournalists are going to have a harder time making a living.
How can people who cover breaking news for a living begin to compete? They can't possibly be everywhere at once. They can compete only on the stories where they are physically present -— and, in the immediate future, by being relatively trusted sources.
But the fact remains, there are far more newsworthy situations than pro picture takers. In the past, most of those situations never were captured. Not any longer.
Is it so sad that the professionals will have more trouble making a living this way in coming years? To them, it must be — and I have friends in the business, which makes this painful to write in some ways.
To the rest of us, as long as we get the trustworthy news we need, the trend is more positive.
