According to Pavlik, advancements in our technology have made it possible for ordinary citizens with a cellphone or digital device to become amateur news reporters if they are on-site witnesses to incidents such as a fire in the neighborhood, a robbery, or a natural disaster.
On the bright side, they are able to provide immediate images and/or videos of the incident before news vans can reach the site, allowing viewers to see the events unfold as they happened. However, my problem with this is that what can be considered a news-worthy incident?
I believe there were amateur videos last year of fights in the subway that were featured in the news and ever since then, people seem to be waiting for the opportunity to take out their cellphones to record similar events at a moment’s notice so they could post it to Youtube for their “fifteen minutes of fame.” I remember witnessing a small fire that began inside a moving truck on Halloween night last year – instead of people trying to salvage what they could from the moving truck, many of them took out their cellphones and recorded the fire as it engulfed the truck, thinking that they’ll be able to send the video they recorded to a local news channel and be credited for it.
Granted, it’s common sense for people not to go near a burning moving truck, but have we come to value the idea of “fifteen minutes of fame” over doing the right thing?
