Interesting discussion of the issue of using videos and Tweets from non-journalists in covering events.
New York Times
Journalism Rules Are Bent in News Coverage From Iran
Published: June 28, 2009
"Check the source" may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran his month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don’t know the answer, ask your readers.
CNN showed scores of videos submitted by Iranians, most of them presumably from protesters who took to the streets to oppose Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election on June 12. The Web sites of The New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Guardian newspaper in London and others published minute-by-minute blogs with a mix of unverified videos, anonymous Twitter messages and traditional accounts from Tehran.