"In the age of the citizen journalist, am I becoming redundant?"
That was the rhetorical question posed by BBC World Affairs Correspondent Allan Little on the magazine programme Broadcasting House (BBC Radio 4, Sunday 15 May).
The revolution in Egypt and other 'Arab Spring' stories have highlighted the role of Twitter, Facebook and the Blogosphere. But how reliable is news that comes through social networks and via the cameraphones of protestors and eyewitnesses?
Little delved into the history of reporting from the thick of it with a supporting cast of great journalists from Richard Dimbleby and Martha Gellhorn to Kate Adie, Martin Bell and Brian Hanrahan.
He was joined by BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen, fresh off the plane from Beirut; from where he'd been trying, unsuccessfully, to get into Syria.
What was Bowen missing by not being able to enter that country - and is the information emerging from Syria on social networking sites a substitute for seeing things with his own eyes?
