BBC reports on ethics for cameraphone journalists:

Budding amateur photographers and citizen journalists should not be tempted to become star stalkers says the founder of an amateur photo agency.

Kyle MacRae, whose agency Scoopt represents mobile snappers so they get paid for their work, said there are serious ethical issues at stake.

Following the London bomb attacks and Asian tsunami, news outlets have been keen to exploit mobile snaps and video.

Cameraphone growth has let more people capture events as they happen.

Such hazy snaps usually taken by amateurs who witness events before they hit the headlines are proving valuable to traditional news organisations.

Although Mr MacRae is passionate about the potential impact witness or citizen journalists can have in changing what becomes newsworthy, he said that should not mean people go out deliberately searching for that elusive scoop.

This week, the Chartered Institute of Journalists also warned news organisations against actively encouraging people to do that, adding that people should be paid for their contributions too.

“The real issue here is an ethical issue if a bomb goes off and someone stops and takes a picture instead of helping,” Mr MacRae told the BBC News website.