The use of mobile phones to record news began in the Iraqi invasion in 2003. Phone footage was so important in the Madrid bombings and tsunami. However, the peak of mobile journalism took root during the London bombing in 2005, a large percentage of the footages came from ordinary people’s phones (Marrouch, 2014). During that time Richard Sambrook, from BBC said, “People are participating in our coverage in a way that we have never seen before,”
The trend did not follow as was expected in the media since other media were embracing mobile technology. In a study conducted by the United Kingdom-based broadcasters, only 1-2% of the news content came from mobile phones (Marrouch, 2014). There are three types of mobile journalism; these include user-generated content, citizen journalists' content, and professional journalists. Most media houses like the BBC and CNN are encouraging the submission of user-generated content since there is a particular enthusiasm in this media.
Nonetheless, many challenges come with a mobile journalist; the first is getting the sound correct. Background noises disrupt what is intended for the audience hence hindering full understanding of what is happening in the video. According to Hadland, there are many challenges in integrating various newsrooms into one well-known system mobile journalists since there are many types of phones used. Thus mobile phone journalism is useful but cannot be mainly applied to all news content.
Conclusion
Mobile phone journalism helps show footage of incidents like tsunamis and terrorist attacks where journalists are not readily available. However, it comes with many challenges such as background noise and clarity and steadiness of the video.
References
Marrouch, R. (2014) ‘How mobile phones are changing journalism practice in the 21st century’ Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University [online]
