This is a really interesting new site:

Cell Journalist wants to help you share your news with the world. We are looking for content that is important to you. Tell us what is going on at your city council meetings, show us photos of your local high school football games, or send in a video clip of the tornado damage in your town. Share the news and events that are important to you.

Newspapers and T.V. stations cannot cover every local event in your area. Cell Journalist allows the community to partner with the media, so that all events can be covered. When your images/videos/stories are used by our media partners then you get paid, it’s that simple.

The internet has really changed the stock photography industry, because of sites like Stock.XCHNG where people upload their photos and make pennies/dollars per shot. Old stock photos used to cost hundreds of dollars, so this has been a really disruptive movement towards the old business model. Now with camera phones it looks like the photo industry will move even more in the direction of cheaper shots, and as more cell phones in the US come with cameras I think we’ll get more and more amazing pictures of events as they happen. Cell Journalist is right, there are often events with no newscasters around, but plenty of people with cell phones.

Wouldn’t it have been a big deal to have a picture of the immediate aftermath of Ben Roethlisberger bouncing off of that car yesterday? Of course it would have. A service like Cell Journalist might make that sort of thing possible.

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