Cell-Phone Videos Transforming TV News

Cell-phone video, despite having not nearly the picture quality of those produced by professional broadcasters, "does what pictures often do _ it reveals the truth of the story," Lukasiewicz said.

"Witnesses tend to argue," he said. "What one person saw might be different from what another person saw. The picture doesn't lie, but the picture isn't the whole story."

Television networks have taken viewer-contributed video ever since the advent of hand-held video cameras. Still, people aren't likely to be carrying a video camera when news suddenly happens. They probably have their cell phones, however.

Video capability has been around since the camera phones were introduced in 2000, but didn't gain significant acceptance in the United States until Sprint introduced a popular service in 2003.

An estimated 70 percent of Americans carry cell phones. Nearly one quarter of cell phone users _ an estimated 55.5 million people _ have phones with video capability. One-third of them claim to use their video feature at least once a week, according to analyses by InfoTrends and The Yankee Group.

News organizations became aware of the potential of cell-phone video during the 2005 London subway bombing, when riders' phones captured images conventional cameras didn't, said David Rhodes, Fox News Channel vice president of news.

Networks even use their own cell-phone video in cases where reporters aren't accompanied by cameramen. NBC's first pictures of roof damage from inside the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina were taken by Brian Williams. Fox News aired cell-phone video in the initial stages of covering New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle's fatal plane crash.

Digital technology has the power to make everyone a news reporter, said David Westin, ABC News president.

"That has enormous potential for good and also has enormous potential for mischief," he said. "The challenge for us is to get the good and weed out the mischief."

Someone with a camera, an agenda and modest acting abilities can try to fool a news organization. Some people simply enjoy the sport of it. During coverage of a hurricane, one viewer sent NBC News a picture of supposed damage, when in fact it was a professionally taken photo from another storm, Lukasiewicz said.

It requires a careful vetting process unnecessary when the networks gather their own material, Westin said.

But it's the future. Or, more accurately, the present. CNN in 2006 introduced technology to enable viewers to upload video taken on any device and easily send it to the network, where a staff is assigned to look over the material for newsworthiness.