The two big competing news shows here in New Zealand are both falling over themselves in ad campaigns which encourage viewers to call their free phone number and share their videos of news events with the country, because it’s “our news” and it’s not about “them”.

One state-owned television network’s campaign slogan of ‘it’s not about us’ has become an ongoing joke in the media here. It was partly meant to combat the ongoing internal problems of ridiculously high salaries for news presenters who had become “celebrities” and the focus point, rather than the news itself. Probably one of the funniest moments on local television was when a tv presenter read out a story about her own salary being leaked as $800,000 and the surrounding uproar by politicians and the public.

Sending in your own news footage to a television network still has a large appeal to the masses right now - the “hi mum I’m on TV” effect. The tide is turning, however. When the London bombings occured, the first photos from the underground scenes where reporters could not get to were being uploaded to Flickr, groups were being formed and journalists were forced to leave comments asking for permission to use those PXTs in their publications. YouTube, Our Media and others are now providing a similar service for video footage.

If we all have phones or digital devices which will record wherever we go and can be instantly uploaded, the news will certainly be more-and-more from an eye-witness perspective. I noticed this effect the other day, with a video of a baby being rescued from a bag in Brazil.

So what advantages are there with sharing online over sharing to TV networks?

• Plenty - I retain ownership, the original files and I control who can use my material and for what purposes. I see that YouTube have strict usage policies (namely, TV networks wouldn’t be able to broadcast those files without permission of the owner) which protect my rights (as much as possible, but TV networks would be easily caught if they were to play them).
• Everyone can see my files when they want - not when the news is broadcast later on that day. News gets out faster. When someone crashed a plane here on the night of our election (turns out the guy was broken-hearted his wife of less than a year left him for someone else), we had photos up on Idolblog from a member who lived right next to the crash site. TV footage didn’t have that until hours later.
• It’s not re-edited and packaged up with someone else’s slant on what happened. I get to tell my story myself. I’ve been interviewed on TV quite a few times and it’s incredible: every single time there is some inaccuracy, some slant, some editing which always leaves me thinking “I wonder how wrong they get the important news?”.

Yes, that sounds a little more like “our news, our way”. I look forward to the day that places like Flickr and YouTube become mainstream here in New Zealand.