People feel the same natural thrill at capturing an extraordinary event and posting it online as photojournalists must have once felt when they found themselves on the scene at some momentous occasion. It may have cost one of those three men in Crescent City his life. And though it is not without its drawbacks, the emergence of literally millions of unique data capturing points, especially in a place as dense with electronics as Japan, means that we have a far richer dataset on which to base history.

Photojournalists will still dominate scheduled events, like sporting matches and press conferences, with their pro equipment and training. But statistics is against them when it comes to capturing news. The world is big and professional photojournalists are few. The chances of one of them being in exactly the right place at the right time is about the same as a being on Haifa Street at precisely the moment when insurgents decide to kill an Iraqi election worker right in front of your camera.

It might happen, but it won’t happen too often. For good or ill, the chroniclers of our times will be the event participants themselves.