Chicago Sun Times Fires Staff Photographers

[Whiskeyman]

Chicago Sun-Times lays off photo staff - chicagotribune.com

Not a good time to be a photographer for that outfit.

Does anyone see it happening elsewhere?

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

What is so funny is that they say the shift to people wanting more video with their news is part of the reasoning. Isn't this a NewsPAPER ? With the advent of easy to use cameras why not have the reporters shoot. There generally are not that many photos in papers. Also there are so many cameras in the hands of people that everything is getting shot and most papers will accept contributions of photos from their readers. And there are starving free lancers out there that will shoot and sell by the shot.

Do I think any of this is a good idea? NO

I cancelled my newspaper subscription 4 years ago and have to missed it yet.

 

[pedroj]

Here in Aus the newspaper industry have been reducing staff levels for a while now....The free to air tv stations are feeling the pinch as well...

It's a sign of the times

 

[STM]

So they are going to leave their photos to REPORTERS? What a STUPID idea. And freelancers are an unknown when it comes to their abilities to actually shoot news type photos. I doubt I would be all that good at it.

 

[pedroj]

So they are going to leave their photos to REPORTERS? What a STUPID idea. And freelancers are an unknown when it comes to their abilities to actually shoot news type photos. I doubt I would be all that good at it.

I'm sure there are a lot of people on this sight that are capable of getting "the shot"....Right lens right place no problems...

 

[Cowleystjames]

This was discussed at the Mirror group newspapers here in the UK several months ago.
The reasoning was that most people now have a mobile phone capable of capturing decent enough images for print use, and a lot of news worthy images are captured by the public.
The group discovered that their staff photographers were getting good interview images but they were buying increasing numbers from the public. So much so that they are considering dismissing staff photographers and just buying in images.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk 4

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

Before I retired I worked in TV. We actually got cell phone video in all the time that was surprisingly good. News as it happens can't always wait till a camera crew or reported gets there. Got to be the same with print news. Based on what Cowleystjames just said the reporters were sealing there own fate by buying photos and bringing them in.

My iPhone 5 does pretty good video and stills and I always have it with me. I think newspapers are on the way out anyway. The news is better online anyway. Local newspapers are going to have to drop print and go online. Getting the balance of free and pay is the question they are going to have to work on.

 

[stmv]

take a look at the images of the recent tornado,, I suspect most were from the public

 

[Rick M]

First responders (photographic sense)are now the public. Slow news had time for photographers to show up, not any more, they are beat to the punch. It is too bad for sure, gotta change with the times.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

TV news here in my area is interesting. The #1 news is/was the NBC station. I worked for the ABC / CBS / CW station. WE also produced the local
Fox stations news so you could see us on 4 of the 5 networks. When I left we had just completed a $5 million update just for news. TV news is big money. getting the news first with the best video is #1 priority. We had just set up a system that used a laptop connected to a special 4G / LTE network to broadcast live to the network using standard HD news cameras. They could be onsite and broadcasting live in a minute after they got there. With out microwave trucks it would take at least a half hour to set up and go live.

Newspapers can not compete with the TV news or internet.

 

[BackdoorArts]

My brother has been a news photographer for 20+ years. He works for a major paper here in NJ (you can guess, but I'd prefer not to name it) and has survived 2 or 3 sets of downsizing so far. I have stories I can't share, but let's just say that if that's your job and you're not planning accordingly, you're bound to have a rude awakening some day soon. Thankfully his paper still values the difference a photographer behind the camera makes (there have been failed experiments), but suffice it to say that unless you prove you can also write the news there's a chance you'll be on the wrong end of the equation one of these days.

 

[Happypuppy]

My iPhone 5 does pretty good video and stills and I always have it with me. I think newspapers are on the way out anyway. The news is better online anyway. Local newspapers are going to have to drop print and go online. Getting the balance of free and pay is the question they are going to have to work on.

Sounds like that is what they are going to do. They are having mandatory training for reporters to learn the basics of iphone photography.

http://petapixel.com/2013/05/31/sun-times-photojournalism-strategy-reporters-with-iphones/

A fellow had a humorous comment. " next they can have Siri write the stories"

 

[Eduard]

One of the fired photographers, Rob Hart, started a Tumblr account to document being laid off. He is using an iPhone to make a point. More info here. I admire how he is handling the situation.

As a native Chicagoan - where the newspapers play a huge role in the community - I'm sickened by the Sun-Times. When I grew up in the 60's and 70's, there were two morning and two evening newspapers in the city and the competition was fierce. What a travesty IMHO.

 

[BackdoorArts]

If a picture is worth 1000 words (which is clearly evidenced by this Tumblr feed) it would seem that they would have been better off firing 28 reporters and telling the photographers to write longer captions - if they found it necessary. It would be the difference between a newspaper and an Instagram feed on paper.

 

[SamSpade1941]

Photojournalism is and has been dying since the day digital photography showed up. The moment that digital cameras became cheap and readily available to the public it sounded the first trumpet for for the the photojournalist. When people started carrying a camera in their pocket that made phone calls and had access to the Internet it just did not matter that the images were not taken with a SLR by a professional. The 24 hour news cycle trumps all and photo journalism has become very irrelevant in the 24 hour news cycle. I spent several years working in Iraq and Afghanistan and the only "Photojournalists" I actually saw were while working over there were National Geographic and a few Time photographers. Everyone else had regular reporters armed with point and shoot digitals.

 

[BackdoorArts]

Photojournalism is and has been dying since the day digital photography showed up...
The 24 hour news cycle trumps all and photo journalism has become very irrelevant in the 24 hour news cycle.

This is the only point that I would take issue with, though I agree with it in spirit. Rob Hart made a point in one of the WGN interviews that he did, and I'll let that speak for my argument. We glued ourselves to the TV sets watching the details of the Boston Marathon bombing, and were bombarded with cellphone videos and photos, which absolutely sated our lust for more facts, images, rumor and speculation as fast as possible. But when you think back on the story now, it's the images of the pro photographers who were there and captured the moment completely because that's what they do. Do you need to pay someone full time in an industry that's dying to be able to do that while covering high school swimming? Probably not. But the art and impact of the photojournalist will live on - they're just going to find a different way to be compensated for that work.

So yes, the 24 hour news cycle is king, and the only real money making news media. But it's like vapor, and very little produced during it lives on the next day, let alone the next week, month or year (unless it's an extreme gaff). But the images of a great news photographer live on indefinitely in the minds of just about anyone who sees it.