chicago sun times lays off entire photo staff

[apostasiometritis]

I suppose they are looking at replacements such as prolific freelancer Arielle Stevens of Facebook renown:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-woman-finally-uploads-all-12-million-pictures,30443/

I refuse to believe that is true. Say it isn’t.

 

[Mark Schretlen]

I refuse to believe that is true. Say it isn’t.

I was joking. It is probably not too far off the mark, though.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Adapt or die.

Photography used to require specialized knowledge/skill. It doesn't anymore, if your aim is simply to "faithfully record what happened." This leaves aesthetics as the sole remaining reason for photographer/journalists. The idea that the news needs to be reported photographically by someone with an aesthetic sense flies in the face of the news' claim to objectivity."Professional" photographer journalists have always put the lie to the claimed 'objectivity' of the news.

Easy to say when it's not your job.
Cheers,

R.

 

[segedi]

My guess is that they will rehire the photographers as freelancers. That way, they don't have to pay benefits or wages.

Not sure about IL, but I know CA and probably WA have laws that prevent contract work within a year of being laid off. I think Microsoft would do just that, lay people off and then immediately contract their services sans benefits. Now you can't do that. I'm sure it will happen in some instances though.

 

[KoNickon]

No, I think Mike (ZeissFan) is probably close to the mark. Someone mentioned sports photography; I can't believe they'd stop using experienced staffers. More likely they just hire these guys as independent contractors.

 

[semilog]

I work at Boston University, and last week they just laid off their photo department and abolished the department altogether. Not the academic photography department, but the one in charge of all official university photography. I realize that BU is not the Chicago Sun Times, but it more evidence of a growing trend. From what I understand, the thinking is that they can get students with high-end DSLRs to do the same thing at little to no cost. The head of the department is 65 and had been here 44 years.

You gotta do something to keep up with administrative bloat.

 

[swoop]

On the brighter side, the Seattle Times added a new photographer to its staff last week.

So no, photojournalism isn't dead, but in some markets it's a challenge getting those who write checks to see the value. And most staff photographer jobs at magazines are being listed under the guise of "photo editor" where they are basically photographing everything themselves.

 

[KoNickon]

Guys, print journalism is really struggling. A sign of the times, and a real shame. I'm sure these papers have eviscerated their reporting and editorial staffs also.

 

[kshapero]

unfortunately I am not surprised. I believe CNN did this years ago. This trend seems to irreversible. How will this play out?

 

[rolfe]

My guess is that this is basically a disguised way to eliminate many high paid employees (who are probably pretty senior) and replace them with lower paid entry level freelancers. Lots of businesses (and local governments) do this and try to mask it under various guises.

I suspect a secondary reason is that the newspaper wanted more video coverage and the existing staff may have pushed back on that, for any number of reasons. (I don't have any personal knowledge of the Chicago specific situation).

Take a look at the NY Times web site and you will see that it is turning into a virtual TV channel. In fact, I think that is probably the long range plan. OTOH, although I don't think the New York Times has hired a staff photographer in a long time, I also don't think it has laid off any. I the NYT case, I think the newspaper has expanded the scope of the work and it appears that they have a virtual army of freelance photographers -- both video and still -- to produce the output for both print and digital. This is in addition to the staff photographers who appear to still produce the bulk of the output for the news pages.

 

[KM-25]

In one fell swoop, a very large news gathering organization has indirectly publicly stated that they no longer value the Pulitzer Prize, an American award for journalism excellence that people have paid with their lives for. For it should be glaringly obvious that this is just the first round of creative editorial layoffs that this paper will announce and such in depth reporting that would take a Pulitzer will be nearly impossible for those left on staff to execute when over-tasked…

This announcement has sent shockwaves through the communities I am associated with and it speaks to a much larger problem in society looming in the not so distant future. I have called a meeting of the faculty that drives this new media program to talk about this very thing. I was invited numerous times to teach a class on Photojournalism but have politely turned it down each time because I simply don't feel right about these future students learning a trade they will likely never be able to monetize. So the meeting will address an opportunity that the program has, to start considered and informed dialogue as to what do these students want their brave new digital world to be and what are they wiling to sacrifice to see it happen…are they OK with a world where less and less people are paid to dedicate their lives to creative pursuits that will never pay them, only profit the large corporations that will control the majority of the content?

What do we want our future to be and do we realize yet that not only are we seeing ecological climate change that will be irreversible but social climate change that will also be irreversible?

This announcement could be a loud enough "bang" that we ought to start to *really* question how safe anyone's job is and how this could get much, much worse in the very near future…..

This is no longer a case of "Oh well, adapt or die!", in my estimation this is far bigger than that and we had better wake up to it and not just feel bad for "The Other Guy"….

 

[back alley]

this might be a naive question...but wont blogs and social networks just replace the printed newspaper?
pulitzers can be won by bloggers? etc.

 

[fdarnell]

Look for format change

Look for format change

I guess this means that the Sun Times will now have to be printed in landscape mode instead of portrait mode since all of the iPhotographers and iVideographers have yet to learn to rotate their cameras to a horizontal orientation to GET THE SCENE TO FIT!.

😀

On the other hand, sales of PTGuiPro will increase!

 

[mugent]

This is the cost of our collective purchasing habits.
I buy a newspaper now once or twice a week as what time I do have to catch up on the news I can do online, it's not as in-depth, but for the time I have it's enough.
Newspapers are dying because people like me are not supporting them.
I was actually discussing this with my wife this morning and we've decided to take on an online newspaper subscription. As they say, use it or lose it.

I think this is it. The newspaper used to be the primary source of news, now, I buy a newspaper maybe once a year if I'm going on a long train journey or something.

On the other hand, laying off full timers to replace with freelance/contractors is nothing new, and I'm not sure it's indicative of the state of photography.

 

[rolfe]

Newspapers are making a painful transition to the digital age. Digital presentation will necessarily include lots of video. As I mentioned in a previous post, the NY Times is pretty far along in this transition because it started years ago. It is not something that a newspaper can do overnight. It sounds as though in the Sun-Times case, that newspaper has decided to shrink the pie. In the NYT case, the newspaper has managed to grow the pie.

 

[Keith]

I see a parallel with reality television here oddly. You get an end product that still rates highly and generates the required income but you don't have to hire actors!

🙄

 

[semilog]

You've managed to attack my argument ad hominem…

I can read. You asserted a couple of things but there was no chain of reasoning, no linkage to evidence. You hurled an insult, but made no argument.

 

[newsgrunt]

They will also need some photo techs to handle prepress work. There's a certain skill involved in prepping a photo for newspaper reproduction. It's not the same as Web display.

Not at all. Many newspapers have laid off enhancers (as they're usually called) and replaced them with products such as ColourFactory. Think of CF as a highly tuned autolevels which is what it basically does. Editors hit 'auto fulfill' and everything is done.

For crucial work, it doesn't come close to a trained enhancer but many papers are happy with the middle of the road results.

 

[semilog]

In one fell swoop, a very large news gathering organization has indirectly publicly stated that they no longer value the Pulitzer Prize, an American award for journalism excellence that people have paid with their lives for. For it should be glaringly obvious that this is just the first round of creative editorial layoffs that this paper will announce and such in depth reporting that would take a Pulitzer will be nearly impossible for those left on staff to execute when over-tasked…

This announcement has sent shockwaves through the communities I am associated with and it speaks to a much larger problem in society looming in the not so distant future. I have called a meeting of the faculty that drives this new media program to talk about this very thing. I was invited numerous times to teach a class on Photojournalism but have politely turned it down each time because I simply don't feel right about these future students learning a trade they will likely never be able to monetize. So the meeting will address an opportunity that the program has, to start considered and informed dialogue as to what do these students want their brave new digital world to be and what are they wiling to sacrifice to see it happen…are they OK with a world where less and less people are paid to dedicate their lives to creative pursuits that will never pay them, only profit the large corporations that will control the majority of the content?

What do we want our future to be and do we realize yet that not only are we seeing ecological climate change that will be irreversible but social climate change that will also be irreversible?

This announcement could be a loud enough "bang" that we ought to start to *really* question how safe anyone's job is and how this could get much, much worse in the very near future…..

This is no longer a case of "Oh well, adapt or die!", in my estimation this is far bigger than that and we had better wake up to it and not just feel bad for "The Other Guy"….

Exactly. This is a big deal. It reflects and amplifies a series of major transitions in our economic and cultural climate. Some of these changes will be for the better; many more will not.

 

[Lauffray]

Easy to say when it's not your job.

Cheers,

R.

I agree with that, I am fortunate enough to be working in a healthy domain at the moment, but who knows how long that's to last. Whenever I hear of mass layoffs or an industry in decline, I think it may very well be myself in that spot one day.