Journalists ditch pens in favour of mobile phones

Mobile phones are the latest story-telling tool for news reporters wanting to get closer to the action.

New mobile phone technology has also led to the rise of the moblog – a weblog that receives its content from portable devices like mobile phones and palmtops.

Kristine Garcia, news editor of stuff.co.nz, trialled mobile phone reporting at this year's Big Day Out concert in January in Auckland. One of the website's reporters text messaged a blog back to the newsroom and included pictures to go with the text.

"It was quite cool, but the quality [of pictures] wasn't great," Garcia says.

Despite this, she says it is something they would do again as it can be a useful tool for certain situations, especially breaking news.

At nzherald.co.nz, every journalist carries a picture-capable cellphone. If they are out and about and see something interesting, they email photos back to the office.

In 2003, the Herald website sent a reporter with two cellphones to the Lord of the Rings premiere in Wellington. Using one phone, she sent a continuous commentary of the red carpet event which was presented in text form on the site. With the other the snapped and emailed photos to accompany the words.

Mobile phones became particularly prominent in news reporting after the London bomb attacks in July, but the first known use of mobile-phone-assisted reporting was in 2000. Danish journalist Tom Vilmer Paamand used his mobile phone to report on a protest against building highways through Denmark 's natural environment.

Paamand used text messaging to send information from the protest scene to his web page during the day. He then edited the information at night.

"It was used by journalists to cover the story. They soon expected it as a source and complained if I didn't update it for some hours," Vilmer says.

He says once the idea was there, the technology wasn't too difficult to organise.

So, what does the future hold?

Garcia suspects the mobile phone will have a fairly big impact on online journalism but says it's hard to tell just how much at this stage. She says the quality of mobile phones and other technology is getting better. But she believes its significance in New Zealand will depend on how many people have pxt and video capable phones.

Paul Smith, deputy editor of nzherald.co.nz, agrees it is a question of resources and technology. New Zealand is a small country, and it takes a while for new technology to filter down here, he says. We also do not have the same resources as large news organisations like the BBC.

Paamand writes independently and is planning to make an interface for a website he works for, indymedia.dk. He says this will make it possible for street journalists to report during actions and demonstrations and to include photos.

Rise of the citizen journalist

The concept of a citizen journalist first made headlines during the 2004 Boxing Day tsunamis and the 2005 earthquake in South Asia.

Stuff is trying to take advantage of this new kind of reporting, and encourages people to send in images and news leads. But the response has not been great so far.

Garcia is not sure how widespread pxt phones are throughout New Zealand . She believes this may be a reason for the slow start to citizen journalism here.

On some occasions the public have assisted in the reporting process. Stuff received photos within one hour of a plane crash in Auckland on election night

Garcia says they would need to promote the idea more to get more of a response. She says it could be great for breaking news, but issues such as privacy also surround such reporting.

Smith says nzherald.co.nz has not had a huge number of citizen journalists but they do receive images on occasion.

"Globally it is happening a lot more," he says.

Smith says nzherald.co.nz treats supplied images like any other information they are given, checking its accuracy and authenticity before publishing it.

"We have to be pretty confident – if there are any doubts, we wouldn't use it," he says.