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Why the Hand Wringing about Chicago Sun Times Layoff of Photographers?

There has been a great deal of hand wringing over the recent layoffs by the Chicago Sun Times of its entire photography staff (that last link fittingly appropriate to USA Today!).

With the abysmal quality of what passes for journalism today, why would anyone be surprised? It is consistent with the entire news market today: the public wants its carefully sanitized and simplified narrow-viewpoint pre-digested “news”, so how exactly would such stuff warrant high quality reporting imagery?

David Butow writes

Your comments on the sacking of the Sun-Times photo staff was an opportunity for you to express an opinion on the state of journalism in the US today, but those ideas, regardless of their possible validity, had nothing to do with the reason the layoffs occurred or the current climate of photojournalism and professional photography in general.

First of all, the "hand-wringing" occurs because 24 professional photographers have lost their jobs, another blow to a hard-hit profession. Secondly, the readers of the Sun-Times will see photographs of local stories that will be done by reporters whose skills are based on writing, not shooting. Thirdly, the move follows the trend of "professional" photography being done by people who may not have a background in it, but are able to use digital technology to take a technically competent picture.

The reasons the layoffs occurred have nothing to do with your claim that the "public wants its carefully sanitized and simplified narrow-viewpoint pre-digested 'news'. " The reason is economic, pure and simple. Digital news and the proliferation of more outlets has shrunk readerships at magazines and newspapers, online advertising brings less revenue than print and so the management at publications cut staff to save money.

Even before the digital revolution, staffs at newspapers faced cuts because more US newspapers went from being family-owned, to being owned by large corporations that had shareholders and boards to please and thus were more profit-motivated in general.

It could be argued that prior to the 1960's and 70's, (what many regard as the golden age of US journalism), there was a lot of "sanitization" and "narrow-minded, pre-digested news", but there was also a lot of great photography produced during this period and it was often commissioned by publications that recognized the value of good imagery regardless of the journalistic agenda.

There is still a lot of great journalism and photojournalism in the US being produced, but traditional publications which had previously funded much of this work are responsible for less of a share of it than before. Professional photographers who want to tackle subjects that are expensive to do are now faced with the prospect that the money will have to come from non-traditional sources, like crowd-funding, non-profits and often the photographer's own bank account. To get expenses covered, let alone making a profit, is considered a victory these days, and people can only work for free for so long. That might not be a surprise, a lot of people saw this coming, but I think it justifies a little hand-wringing.

about me:

I've worked as a professional photojournalist for 30 years, on the staffs of several newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and as a contract photographer with US News and World Report from 1994-2008. I've been to at least a couple dozen countries on assignment including Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Iraq and Japan, and I am a subscriber to the Leica Guide on your website.

DIGLLOYD: no disagreement here overall. My point of view is exactly that: economics; the public does not want to pay for quality.


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