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Imagine what would happen if the attacks of September 11, 2001, were to happen in 2013, and that no professional journalist were present in the immediate aftermath, as was the case in 2001. Images from the event would flood social networks like Instagram. In the interest of speed and providing information, would the world’s newspapers rely on their reports? “For a major news event,” says Kathy Ryan, “if it gives you a speed advantage, I would say ‘Sure, why not’. Here, there are two things going on simultaneously. One, seeing these thousands of pictures that people are instagramming each other, which is interesting for the historical record. Two, therefore if there’s thousands of images, we, as a magazine have the responsibility to take the dialog beyond that. And that’s the reason why you should send a photographer with a special eye. I would say these thousands of images couldn’t replace the traditional way to cover news event, it would be an added material. But when it’s the only way to get pictures from a scene where no professional photographer was present, you’d be crazy to reject this material because it was made with an iPhone.If it offers an on-the-ground point of view and fills a hole in the coverage. It’s problematic. The minute I say that, I know as a journalist that the fact checking responsibilities go up dramatically. If you’re getting in images from citizen journalists, from people who have no training, no understanding of the larger rules and context of what we do, then an editor has to determine and prove that this is what we think it is. The land mine might be there. But it can possibly be done.”
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