Article Summary: 'We're All Reporters in the Digital Democracy' By Emily Bell

The key points of this article (published on Monday 20th March 2006, The Guardian) are:

• Media consumers are now making themselves heard in a rapid move towards the democratisation of media.
• This is made possible by the Internet, broadband delivery and digitised media.
• The Internet came into its own as a news communication medium when the September 11th terrorist attacks occurred.
• The recording of mobile phone calls and pictures and videos of the event brought the moment of dreadfulness to life.
• If it were to happen nowadays though, the reporting of the event would be very different as there would be thousands of picture sand videos from the public.
• It is now almost second nature for citizens caught up in a news event to record it on increasingly handy digital equipment.
• This phenomenon was started by local papers, who got locals to send news stories to them.
• This is seen as a sensible move by newspapers, but causes controversy when done by national newspapers and raises questions about risks and brand.
• The mainstream media has a job to do in not just incorporating these eyewitness testimonies into its own work but also aggregating these communities of potential contributors.
• The author of this article - Emily Bell - thinks that this is not a cynical exploitation of free material and while the nature of the relationship is essentially participatory at the moment, it won't be long until citizen journalists ask for payment for their best exclusive material.
• The idea that what the professional journalists can provide will always - in all circumstances - be qualitatively better than a citizen journalist is not true anymore.