emraphoto
Veteran
Memo out today.
From: Womack, Jack
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 3:59 PM
To: *CNN ALL Cities ImageSound (TBS); *CNN ALL Cities Tech Ops
Subject: NOTE TO STAFF
For the past three years, we have been analyzing our work process across Image + Sound, both in the field and in our editing and production areas.
Our goal has been to make sure we have the right resources in the right places to meet the demands of all of our programs. Technology investments in our newsrooms now allow more desk-top editing and publishing for broadcast and online. This evolution allows more people in more places to edit and publish than ever before. As a result of these technology and workflow changes, CNN is reducing the number of media editors in our work force in Atlanta. CNN Image + Sound will continue with high end craft editing that has positive impact on our networks and platforms.
We also spent a great deal of time analyzing how we utilize and deploy photojournalists across all of our locations in the U.S. We looked at the evolution of daytime and evening line-ups. We analyzed how stories are assigned and more importantly the ratio of stories assigned that actually make it on to our networks or platforms. We know that we have to sharpen our focus on stories assigned to ensure that this great work gets on air. We looked at production demands, down time, and international deployments. We looked at the impact of user-generated content and social media, CNN iReporters and of course our affiliate contributions in breaking news. Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible. Small cameras are now high broadcast quality. More of this technology is in the hands of more people. After completing this analysis, CNN determined that some photojournalists will be departing the company.
We cannot begin to thank these individuals enough for their service to CNN. They leave with our respect and our sincere best wishes.
Now that we have completed this three-year review, we believe that we have the right resources in the right places and the proper staffing at Image + Sound, and that the unit is well-positioned to have an even more positive impact on our networks and platforms.
Jack
*I guess citizen joutnalists are good enough for CNN
From: Womack, Jack
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 3:59 PM
To: *CNN ALL Cities ImageSound (TBS); *CNN ALL Cities Tech Ops
Subject: NOTE TO STAFF
For the past three years, we have been analyzing our work process across Image + Sound, both in the field and in our editing and production areas.
Our goal has been to make sure we have the right resources in the right places to meet the demands of all of our programs. Technology investments in our newsrooms now allow more desk-top editing and publishing for broadcast and online. This evolution allows more people in more places to edit and publish than ever before. As a result of these technology and workflow changes, CNN is reducing the number of media editors in our work force in Atlanta. CNN Image + Sound will continue with high end craft editing that has positive impact on our networks and platforms.
We also spent a great deal of time analyzing how we utilize and deploy photojournalists across all of our locations in the U.S. We looked at the evolution of daytime and evening line-ups. We analyzed how stories are assigned and more importantly the ratio of stories assigned that actually make it on to our networks or platforms. We know that we have to sharpen our focus on stories assigned to ensure that this great work gets on air. We looked at production demands, down time, and international deployments. We looked at the impact of user-generated content and social media, CNN iReporters and of course our affiliate contributions in breaking news. Consumer and pro-sumer technologies are simpler and more accessible. Small cameras are now high broadcast quality. More of this technology is in the hands of more people. After completing this analysis, CNN determined that some photojournalists will be departing the company.
We cannot begin to thank these individuals enough for their service to CNN. They leave with our respect and our sincere best wishes.
Now that we have completed this three-year review, we believe that we have the right resources in the right places and the proper staffing at Image + Sound, and that the unit is well-positioned to have an even more positive impact on our networks and platforms.
Jack
*I guess citizen joutnalists are good enough for CNN
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
Yep. And it's going to get much worse. They can get just about any video or still photos they need for free. Why pay professionals? Very sad.
Jamie Pillers
Skeptic
Its seems to be yet another case of "shareholder value" equals spending less on quality. At some point here, our sole sources of useful information will be blogs written by who-knows, fact-checked by no one, and filled with news imagery downloaded from the cheapest source and photoshopped by low-paid tech workers in some unknown country. How 'cheesy' does it all have to get before we all just unplug?
emraphoto
Veteran
It's shameful.
I got an earful here a few years back when i said the future does not hold a place for staffers. I am not happy to be right.
I got an earful here a few years back when i said the future does not hold a place for staffers. I am not happy to be right.
emraphoto
Veteran
I agree 100%. I encourage students to unplug now and start working on answers now.
David Murphy
Veteran
What is a "pro-sumer" technology? Why don't these business wonks just say what they really mean: they are under pressure to cut costs, so they are going to try the cheaper route of somehow using amateurs with cheap cameras! That's not a new approach in photojournalism - it sort of harkens back to the age of the lone magazine correspond with paper pad, pen, and small 35mm camera.
My dad shot his own 16mm film when he was a TV reporter in the early 1950's (Bolex H16's - I remember seeing them on the family kitchen table). As TV news progressed, full 16mm sound crews came along and the quality was vastly better! (and reporters could focus 100% on journalism)
My dad shot his own 16mm film when he was a TV reporter in the early 1950's (Bolex H16's - I remember seeing them on the family kitchen table). As TV news progressed, full 16mm sound crews came along and the quality was vastly better! (and reporters could focus 100% on journalism)
claacct
Well-known
I agree with that.
Chinasaur
Well-known
Don't miss the point here. A photojournalist attaches context, meaning, reportage. There is an implicit trust. A known compass point. A picure, standing alone, can be maniuplated outside any context.
A picture, alone by itself, gives the illusion that reporting is occurring while the paper/website can impart any twist it likes as to context in the verbiage.
Of course, this has always been the case. However, now with no "named" photojournalists to dispute the website version, it becomes so much easier to distort and misrepresent.
Be aware.
A picture, alone by itself, gives the illusion that reporting is occurring while the paper/website can impart any twist it likes as to context in the verbiage.
Of course, this has always been the case. However, now with no "named" photojournalists to dispute the website version, it becomes so much easier to distort and misrepresent.
Be aware.
emraphoto
Veteran
again, another very good, and chilling, point.
x-ray
Veteran
Its terrible to see professional jobs lost and quality degraded in the name of saving a few dollars. One of our local TV companies / Scripps (HGTV, DIY etc) was a few years ago the standard of high quality broadcast. The built three lsrgecstudios here and produced a major part of their programming. A new regional director (CEO) that came into the company decided to chang direction and totally shut down programming production and fired the staff and turned the studios into offices and storage. Quality is out the window now in favor of extremely cheap independent production. You would be shocked st how cheap people will produce 13 30 minute shows.
Now cheap isn't cheap enough and the new trend is to get young college or just out of school video students to write shoot and produce these shows for almost nothing. The net result of all of this is the reduction in quality and the loss of skilled proffesional jobs.
I see the same thing in my business. I'm a commercial photographer and see business drying up quickly. It due to two things brought on by cheap clients, cheap digital cameras and a growing group or amateurswanting to shoot photos and get them published just to see them in print or on the web. Companies that held me to the highest stsndards now accept very poor quality work because they see it as good enough and free.
I don't do weddings or portraits but see an even more serious problem happening in this industry. On a nice Sunday afternoon you can hardly walk through the parks near my home without falling over someone shooting bridal portraits or family portraits. Three weeks ago mybwife and I took a walk through the park and within sight there were four such shoots going on. I know for a fact because I know some of them, they moonlight from other non photo jobs and shoot nights and weekends. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining about people shooting on the side but I am complaining that the majority do not have business liscens and do not pay tax on their work like those of us doing it legit. It really ticksme to see an industry Bering bled to death this way when the people that built this industry and supported an invested in the community are being screwed.
I hesitate to say this but I see plenty of this in this forum. If you want to shoot for money do the right thing. Get your business liscens, collect sales tax and support your state and community. Quit bleeding the people who built the industry.
Now cheap isn't cheap enough and the new trend is to get young college or just out of school video students to write shoot and produce these shows for almost nothing. The net result of all of this is the reduction in quality and the loss of skilled proffesional jobs.
I see the same thing in my business. I'm a commercial photographer and see business drying up quickly. It due to two things brought on by cheap clients, cheap digital cameras and a growing group or amateurswanting to shoot photos and get them published just to see them in print or on the web. Companies that held me to the highest stsndards now accept very poor quality work because they see it as good enough and free.
I don't do weddings or portraits but see an even more serious problem happening in this industry. On a nice Sunday afternoon you can hardly walk through the parks near my home without falling over someone shooting bridal portraits or family portraits. Three weeks ago mybwife and I took a walk through the park and within sight there were four such shoots going on. I know for a fact because I know some of them, they moonlight from other non photo jobs and shoot nights and weekends. Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining about people shooting on the side but I am complaining that the majority do not have business liscens and do not pay tax on their work like those of us doing it legit. It really ticksme to see an industry Bering bled to death this way when the people that built this industry and supported an invested in the community are being screwed.
I hesitate to say this but I see plenty of this in this forum. If you want to shoot for money do the right thing. Get your business liscens, collect sales tax and support your state and community. Quit bleeding the people who built the industry.
emraphoto
Veteran
question. how does one communicate to the mass audience the implications of removing 'professional' from journalism?
gb hill
Veteran
iphones, flip cameras, & You Tube killed journalism around the world. Will Magnum Agency & the Leica be next? I say Occupy CNN!!!
Brian Legge
Veteran
I visit CNN a few times a day. I've come to realize that I basically ignore 95% of the stories that are video only and prefer written stories. Its more time economical for me to open a story, skim it to see if its interesting and either finish or move on to the next than it is to watch a video.
I sincerely hope they aren't moving more towards video stories. They certainly have a place but the ability to skim a written story and the additional depth presented there makes them vastly preferable to me.
I wonder what percentage of CNNs budget was for photographers. Given that many companies are making deep cuts due to the economy as it is - and how much harder the news industry has been hit - this may be a necessity to stay in business. Its these times where I wish we had a BBC equivalent - an educated population is too important to leave to pure capitalism.
I hope everyone lands on their feet soon. Its a lousy situation all around - particularly for those impacted but also for their families, coworkers, bosses and for all readers.
I sincerely hope they aren't moving more towards video stories. They certainly have a place but the ability to skim a written story and the additional depth presented there makes them vastly preferable to me.
I wonder what percentage of CNNs budget was for photographers. Given that many companies are making deep cuts due to the economy as it is - and how much harder the news industry has been hit - this may be a necessity to stay in business. Its these times where I wish we had a BBC equivalent - an educated population is too important to leave to pure capitalism.
I hope everyone lands on their feet soon. Its a lousy situation all around - particularly for those impacted but also for their families, coworkers, bosses and for all readers.
SciAggie
Well-known
I have seen this already in our small community with our local newspaper/news website. Our local paper will not pay for articles or images, they expect folks to give them material. Plenty of folks have done that just to see their work in print, but it's amazing how fast the thrill fades.
Now our paper is in very real danger of going out of business. No one reads the paper because there is nothing worth reading. No one looks at the images because they are cr%p. Now the advertisers are unhappy and may stop buying ad spaces. It is an ugly downward spiral.
Now our paper is in very real danger of going out of business. No one reads the paper because there is nothing worth reading. No one looks at the images because they are cr%p. Now the advertisers are unhappy and may stop buying ad spaces. It is an ugly downward spiral.
huntjump
Well-known
Anyone have a contact to write and complain?
-doomed-
film is exciting
Given the way the industry is going, "citizen journalists" are becoming the norm. I hate to say it but I am a fairly well-trained freelancer now, and If it weren't for the other skills I offer the publication I work with, the locals would take over. It's not a good sign, but at the same time it's also not as bad. Sure, the work comes for free and the quality is so-so and it's cost effective. But like most too good to be true things, "citizen journalists" aren't held to a standard and there are times when publications, broadcast media and the like need people with the skill and knowledge to not get them sued in the action.
In the past few weeks I've been to a few shootings, an ATV crash where I was heckled by gang members and shooed away by police. I also went back to the office and delivered the best work I could give within the circumstances. I missed the photo, but knocked out a few grafs for the web.
At the shooting scenes, I was a block away from two more shootings and a car jacking, most of the local "citizen journalists" go after the fact and therefore they usually find nothing.
In a town like the one I cover, real deal journalists and photojournalists are still king. We're crazy enough to run towards the action when others run away or wait 'til the coast is clear.
I took away a piece of advice from the original poster in a paper I had to write last year. It's true, the fear drives you. I notice that I am hesitant at first, but once I arrive I harness it for the moment. I'm sort of a weird traveler making my way through the industry on my way to other goals, but rest assured, where there are violent towns -- there are still places for professionalism to shine through.
With that, I'll say I'm still learning the ropes.
Bobbo
Well-known
+1 to this several times over. I worked for 4 years for a chain of small daily newspapers. I was laid off because having someone who knows how to lay out a paper, knows how to spell and is able to do every job in the newsroom (most of the time better than those already doing it) was too expensive (the company is notorious for buying and selling newspapers, divisions and the entire company like popcorn, so the layoff was necessary to make it look like they make money to potential buyers). The company also shut down presses at papers left and right, so if I were dumb enough to buy a "local" newspaper, it's printed 100 miles away, and if that press breaks, it's a 200 trip).
I really want to talk one of the bigger local businessmen into setting up an alternative weekly and driving the last paper I worked for into the ground (I'm not bitter, they are just that horrible of a firm. I signed a severance contract with a 2-year non-disparagement clause, so ask me in 21 months what company, what they did horribly wrong, and the ethical and possibly criminal violations I saw while working there
). Another fun tidbit: CNN is far from alone. Gannet (not who I worked for) is in the process of taking all of their page layout responsibilities out of the individual newsrooms and moving them to 5 regional layout centers, costing hundreds of jobs.
All I know is going to school for journalism was one of the dumbest things I've ever done. I should have become a nuclear engineer and moved to Iran. At least there all I'd have to worry about is Israel or the US bombing my office back into the stone age
.Absolutely never, ever ever. Sorry, I don't support people who hack into a missing girl's voicemail, making her parents think she is still alive long after her death. How about we just stop watching television news and read the Washington Post?
Leigh Youdale
Well-known
Like everyone else I greatly regret the dumbing down of news and current affairs reporting and the tendency to do all the research (such as it might be) and editing on a desktop in the station.
However, this is not going to go away no matter how much we moan about it. It is just another industry/profession/occupation that has been overtaken by technology. Once it was expensive and hard to get good images. Now every college student and wannabe photographer can access first grade equipment for very little relative to years ago and make damn good images.
News and current affairs is not delivered in magazines, journals and newspapers very much any more. It is now delivered in bite sized images and abbreviated quotes or comment by studio-based presenters using teleprompters in a format designed more to entertain than inform or educate. This is then syndicated across the nation so that replication is achieved at minimum cost while apparently offering the viewer "local" content as well. Interviewees are cut off or their comments cut and edited so that they can often be made to look as though they support things they actually do not - or vice versa. True local news organisations will wither.
It's not going to change. The remedy is an individual one. Turn off the TV and subscribe to a journal which analyses, interprets, and prints commentary by respected journalists who are credited with their input and who attach their names to what they write.
And if you aspire to a career in photojournalism, train first in something you can safely fall back on for an income, because PJ jobs will be like hen's teeth.
However, this is not going to go away no matter how much we moan about it. It is just another industry/profession/occupation that has been overtaken by technology. Once it was expensive and hard to get good images. Now every college student and wannabe photographer can access first grade equipment for very little relative to years ago and make damn good images.
News and current affairs is not delivered in magazines, journals and newspapers very much any more. It is now delivered in bite sized images and abbreviated quotes or comment by studio-based presenters using teleprompters in a format designed more to entertain than inform or educate. This is then syndicated across the nation so that replication is achieved at minimum cost while apparently offering the viewer "local" content as well. Interviewees are cut off or their comments cut and edited so that they can often be made to look as though they support things they actually do not - or vice versa. True local news organisations will wither.
It's not going to change. The remedy is an individual one. Turn off the TV and subscribe to a journal which analyses, interprets, and prints commentary by respected journalists who are credited with their input and who attach their names to what they write.
And if you aspire to a career in photojournalism, train first in something you can safely fall back on for an income, because PJ jobs will be like hen's teeth.
Leigh Youdale
Well-known
There's a small book I have titled "Little Bunch of Madmen" written by Mort Rosenblum and subtitled "Elements of Global Reporting" - it's about a quote from a Hearst reporter from the 1930's, saying "Whenever you find hundreds of thousands of sane people trying to get out of a place and a little bunch of madmen struggling to get in, you know the latter are newspapermen".
A great read on this very subject. ISBN 978-098259082-9. Just $12.
redisburning
Well-known
remember what happened to Circuit City when they fired all of their "expensive" but good workers?
hate to see people lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
Anyway, CNN sucks. Personally I get my news from the little 10 minute sections that bookend A Prairie Home Companion, lol. CNN has been doing that "everyone with an opinion deserves a voice regardless of factual accuracy" crap for too long and it's eventually going to catch up with them. CNN's journalistic integrity was gone when they started giving voice to people who believe things in spite of a preponderance of evidence; so I hardly see this as being out of line with their behavior.
My condolences if you are a professional photojournalist for a newspaper.
hate to see people lose their jobs through no fault of their own.
Anyway, CNN sucks. Personally I get my news from the little 10 minute sections that bookend A Prairie Home Companion, lol. CNN has been doing that "everyone with an opinion deserves a voice regardless of factual accuracy" crap for too long and it's eventually going to catch up with them. CNN's journalistic integrity was gone when they started giving voice to people who believe things in spite of a preponderance of evidence; so I hardly see this as being out of line with their behavior.
My condolences if you are a professional photojournalist for a newspaper.