What will your first thought be? This guy was a passenger on the ferry that was heading towards the plane to help, so what was he supposed to do, jump into the river and try to get there faster? Fashion a makeshift paddle and help propel the ferry? Seems like posting a picture of the plane to twitter is a reasonable response when you're standing around watching rescue crews do their job.
I don't know if there is anything wrong with merely taking a picture, but posting it online right away when you aren't exactly sure what happened yet isn't sensitive to the families of the potential victims involved.
When I turned on the news earlier, a cameraman was chasing a lady on a stretcher even though she was covering her face, obviously to avoid being shown... During 9/11, the news showed people jumping out of the towers...
Just because we have the technology and response time to bring these moments to our living rooms in real-time doesn't mean it's appropriate... you know?
EDIT: How many tragedies does the tech industry need to get over the fact that we have cell phone cameras with web applications that let us converse about them in real-time? Do you really think these tech journalists care about the victims involved?
I'm not going to mention names, but when I see some of these tech journalists get all riled up about the real-time web every time a tragedy occurs it makes me sick.
Disagree. Are there instances in which journalists and tech are too intrusive into private matters? Absolutely. Is one of them taking a cell phone picture from the deck of a ferry while media helicopters swarm around the scene? No way. Please explain how this picture is insensitive to the family members.
Are you seriously arguing that in the face of a tragedy, no information is preferable to those worried about their family members? The Mumbai attacks are an even better example: if I had a family member in Mumbai during the attacks, I'd want every single piece of info and data I could get my hands on, rather than having to wait forever for the "official" reports.
You're right. I just get a bad feeling when the random Twitter user starts giving interviews and becomes the hero, and when every tragedy inevitably turns into a discussion about Twitter and the real-time web.
