Over Christmas Eve dinner, my wife and a couple of friends and I discussed the growing amount of firsthand reporting in the Blogosphere, including Iraq the Model's real-time reporting for Pajamas on the Iraqi elections. I mentioned that such efforts are having an impact beyond the Blogosphere. For example, when the Miami NBC affiliate reported the story of a Chalk's seaplane crash last week, the first photo to accompany the story was taken not by a professional reporter or photographer, but someone who simply happened to be on the scene with camera-equipped cell phone.

One friend sardonically quipped that eventually, we're going to start seeing people sending photos from their cell phones from inside a plane as it goes down.

Fortunately, that latter half of that equation wasn't an issue for blogger and licensed private pilot Jeremy Hermanns, but on a recent Alaska Airlines flight when the cabin accidentally depressurized, he was able to document the event with his cell phone camera and later, blog about it.

Linking to him, the Blogfather exclaims, "Now that's blogging", and notes that Jeremy's apparently earned the wrath of Alaska Airlines' employees, who apparently don't appreciate his efforts to document a flight gone wrong.

Alaska also apparently doesn't understand how increasingly common Jeremy's efforts will be in the coming months and years, as more and more people acquire cheap digital cameras, camera-phones, and of course, blogs.