“Stringers Of The World Beware”

The trade mags talk about the London cell phone images:

“I think this is a big step into the electronic future,” FNC senior VP John Moody tells TV Week. “The fact that those underground scenes were recorded — and the quality was horrible, they didn’t last very long and they could have used a good producer and director — but you’ve now got a situation where you’ve got millions of potential photographers roaming the streets of Europe, and [Europeans and the British] are ahead of us. What’s that mean? Stringers of the world beware.”

“Sandy MacIntyre, director of news for APTN, says its reporters asked people on the street for images and video,” Broadcasting & Cable reports. “He says APTN didn’t pay for any of the three cellphone videos it used, but did pay $250 for footage shot with a video camera. Images were still coming in from cellphones on Friday morning, but with a tragic twist. ‘We started receiving e-mails with JPEG photos of people who are missing,’ says MacIntyre.”