"If anyone can be a publisher, then anyone can be a journalist." (Shirky, p.71). Well, it does indeed seem to be so, huh? Within a matter of minutes, I am typing these thoughts, proofreading, spellchecking, and then uploading to the web for instant global circulation. Well, only the people in this course will probably read this in reality. However, it is no doubt a fact that the content is available global for anyone who would care to read it. I can't imagine much interest, but you never know and it IS possible! While some professional journalists are bloggers, one does not have to be a professional journalists to blog, thus publish, thus a "journalist"!? Well, something like that...
Okay, speaking of "professional," I found it extremely interesting that in the "United States, the IRS defines a professional photographer as someone who makes more than $5k a year selling his or her photos." (Shirky, p.75). Well, my brother-in-law just sold photos of himself and a deer he recently killed to a magazine for $500...so he is in on his way!
Considering photographs, the text mentions Flickr and the platform it provides. I have always found it to be quite awesome the number of photos one can find in a subject of choice on sites like Flickr. Depending on how the images are tagged, one can search a number of topics and find not only numerous images, but often of good quality. A friend recently sent me some photos of bicycles in the snow and ice. This stimulated a sudden interest for me to see more photos like this. I spent a few minutes and found more photos that anyone could imagine. I also looked tonight for the topic of inauguration photos...as you can imagine there were many! Not surprising for such a popular event, however, there were so many different perspectives. Not so long ago one would have relied on photographers staged in various locations and then selling to magazines and papers (and in recent history, websites). Now we have millions of amateurs and available photos as soon as a computer and Internet connection allow for an upload.
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I found the photo concept interesting as well. Even not to good photographs (these are usually the ones I take) can be turned into money if they are of interest to many people -- then the publishing media pick them up. I wonder if I could get a job with CNN or some other news program doing nothing but searching the web for them for current event photos for them to purchase and use. LLH
ReplyDeleteLast month I bought a Chinese newspaper and found out that 1/3 of the news on print could also be obtained in some hot Chinese sites. It appeared that this paper took the strategy that it hired a couple of people to search the Internet for the news. In this case they search stories by ameteurs and print.
ReplyDeleteNice comments! Another thought is that we can "believe" the photos anymore with the photo editing tools. So maybe you either need to be a good photographer or a good photo editor. It is indeed amazing how many photos are used multiple times in different web-based locations. I have also seen incidents where photos were staged (e.g. war zones).
ReplyDeleteYou said:
ReplyDeleteI am typing these thoughts, proofreading, spellchecking, and then uploading to the web for instant global circulation. Well, only the people in this course will probably read this in reality.
Perhaps not. When I went looking for the Xerox repair story that I commented on Lila's blog (http://lholt-695.blogspot.com/2009/01/group-action-just-got-easier.html ), this was the first hit: http://blog.jackvinson.com/archives/2007/08/27/query_the_classic_xerox_repair_techs_story.html