The 25-year-old has worked as a nurse and photojournalist. As of March 13, he’s helping in the relief effort somewhere near the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. See it here…

Gawker has an interesting take on it:

“The question of whether or not the video qualifies as “journalism” doesn’t really matter—it exists, it’s a document. Someone made it and now everyone can see it. Maybe it’s journalism, maybe it’s “citizen journalism,” maybe it’s just a video. But when you start handing out awards that were created to “honor special achievement in journalism” with an emphasis on “investigative and enterprise work that is original, requires digging and resourcefulness and brings results” to works that consist of finding yourself next to a horrible thing and pulling your camera phone out of your pocket—well, what’s the point of calling anything journalism anymore?”

Hard to disagree with this assessment, but I view the award as a “statement” in favor of Freedom of Speech more then anything else. The question is, is a prestigious journalism award the appropriate “channel” to be making such a statement?

“How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again,” he was quoted as saying.

Jassam was detained back in Sept, 2008 during a raid by Iraqi and U.S. forces on his home in the town of Mahmoudiya, which is about 20 kilometers South of Baghdad. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled in December 2008 there was insufficient evidence to hold Jassam. However, the U.S. military stubbornly refused to release him, saying it was not bound by the ruling because intelligence reports indicated Jassam was a “security threat”. Get ready to open your wallets US Military, looks like you were wrong all along in your conviction. Read the Reuters release statement here…

In his article he states:

“In a wrenching dispatch yesterday, one Time magazine correspondent described how “dozens of reporters watched and filmed” as rescue teams dislodged bodies from the Hotel Montana, where a contingent of UN aid workers was trapped beneath the rubble [...]we rarely bat an eye over the redundancy of the coverage. We just chalk these things up to the cost of a vibrant news media. But in Haiti, the dozens of redundant dispatches are stressing an already perilously fragile situation, as all the journalists scrambling to get into the country chew up valuable capacity and resources. Surely there’s a better way.”

While Scheiber makes a great point in raising the question, he doesn’t touch on the dark, grim side to this question. When you have dozens & dozens of cameras swirling around rubble while the rescue workers pull out a survivor, is it for news, ratings (which unfortunately are tied to revenue), the competitive-exclusivity-on the-story, or all of the above?

What happened in Haiti is beyond horrific, it’s an international tragedy. Social media has (probably for the first time) played a more valuable role in expediting relief efforts, but Scheiber brings up some valid issues in his piece, and raises some questions the media (and it’s critics) often don’t have the courage to address. Let’s hope the rest of the media can pull an Anderson Cooper down there and lend a helping hand when duty calls…and don’t suck up the few resources that are already widely needed down there.