CNN purges staff photojournalists

[Matus]

...
That aside, is CNN to blame here? I recognize, like most people here, that they may just be shooting themselves in the foot. Everyone is making a crappy product for less so we're going to make our product crappy too kind of thing. But, to me, the question is, do they have a choice? Were they to choose to keep those photojournalists and improve the quality of their reporting, would the average consumer care/notice? Would they be able to survive and compete with other networks doing things on the cheap? I honestly don't know.

I think you are making a valid point. In general most people think that most large companies are making loads of money and introduce this kind of measures to make the load even bigger. Indeed there are some that do, bot for most the declining willingness to pay by customers (or headless pricing fight with the competition - I mean - look at the cheap flight companies) got them on the edge of red numbers. I am not saying that the particular approach of CNN is the best approach - it is just the one companies take most often (they somehow feel that this is the only "safe" approach, often leaving more viable and in the longer run more productive solutions aside to avoid risks or consulting fees)

 

[-doomed-]

What a fascinating, depressing thread. I'm a supporter of citizen journalism--at least to the extent that it can fill in the gaps/omissions of a professional media with clear biases and blind spots, but I also value enormously good reporting. I'm a citizen journalist myself, publishing a quarterly zine for the last few years about the city I live in. It fills a niche that has been utterly ignored, the need for good quality local coverage--of the feature variety. A quarterly can't do the police beat obviously. We do long-form interviews, I like to think of it as human interest storytelling done right. We still have a local daily...in my mind that might be one of the few remaining markets since TV won't cover the small places and neither will be the few standing big city papers. But it's not a bright future for sure.

I don't think that there is zero value in "Citizen Journalism" in some cases as you said it helps paint a clearer picture. I work at a daily and we have a few citizen journalists who have been invaluable, and a couple who are pushy and demand that we run their stuff first over staffers.
I'll say that for the small town I work (Trenton,NJ) , we're probably one of the few two paper towns, though one is a bit more concerned with what is going on in the ritzier towns that surround the town it supposedly covers.

 

[shadowfox]

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.

Wise words. A good piece of photojournalism challenges readers/viewers to think. It does not lead on with an agenda-biased elements to elicit certain expected reactions.

CNN doesn't care what you think.

Agree, read on to my next quotations.

The world is in a spiral downward in so many respects. The world of journalism will take two paths eventually but that will only happen when the professional journalists decide to make that path a reality and own their own news channel/publication.

i agree Dave. ownership is an idea for moving forward. feel free to toss out more folks... genuinely interested.

i agree, it has been the topic of conversation amongst myself and a few of my colleagues for a while now. how to make it work, marketing etc.

some super talented folks are tossing it about. i think regional focus is what we will see. N49 out of Western Canada is a good example

This is what I hope to come out of this discussion.
Those professional ex-CNN journalists ought to create their own broadcasting mechanism.

And it takes a lot of infrastructure to do that globally, not just reportage talents and minds.

 

[emraphoto]

the ability to create the bodies to produce and distribute work is not the stumbling block for most. the problem is value for goods. how to convince the audience that it is in their interest to support the work financially.

we have a very, very clever and diverse group of people here and perhaps they can offer their thoughts?

 

[Nikon Bob]

In order to improve our service to you.... We're going to make our service worse.

Banks, tax offices, police... They all do it.

Cheers,

R.

Yea, and the double speak BS just keeps coming. You have to wonder if they really believe what they put out or do they believe everyone is stunned enough to swallow it? If either answer were yes then it is just pitiful.

Bob

 

[redisburning]

As far as TV news goes, CNN is probably one of the last organizations that has any integrity for telling the real news from both sides. It is vitally imperative that we have neutral news organizations that can gain access that individuals can't, otherwise you end up not getting news, but propaganda, like from Fox and to a smaller extent, MSNBC. If the truth can't come out, how can the populace make informed decisions? I think back to when I was a kid watching the news. Interviews were exactly that, interviews. Now an interview is just an excuse for the interviewer to give their opinion.

you are mistaking what they are doing for neutrality.

it's a false equivalency; just letting people who disagree with reality talk is not neutral at all. it's idiotic.

neutral is when there is NO opinion.

for example, if a new study came out talking about a decline in the ice density in glaciers due to climate change you would expect to see CNN invite both a climate scientist and some denier who has absolutely zero real expertise on the matter who now can come on tv and spout absolute horse **** with no fact check.

that is not neutrality. a neutral story invites only a scientist who has an expertise on the body of work but did not participate in or review the study for a journal. two opinions don't cancel out into a fact, they just give credibility to those who deserve none.

CNN's take on neutrality is one that I can live without. I want a news source where it is clear that it is not opinion that I am getting but just the most complete set of facts that are out there.

 

[Ezzie]

They have missed the point of photojournalism. Anybody can supply a photo of sorts, and many are willing free of charge. But who´s going to supply the journalism to go with the photo?

 

[emraphoto]

As far as TV news goes, CNN is probably one of the last organizations that has any integrity for telling the real news from both sides. It is vitally imperative that we have neutral news organizations that can gain access that individuals can't, otherwise you end up not getting news, but propaganda, like from Fox and to a smaller extent, MSNBC. If the truth can't come out, how can the populace make informed decisions? I think back to when I was a kid watching the news. Interviews were exactly that, interviews. Now an interview is just an excuse for the interviewer to give their opinion.

i have to disagree with this assessment of CNN. i agree with the overall body of what you have said CNN is just as bad as the next.

i remember sitting in a room in the Niger Delta watching the CNN report from the same region, about 20 mins from where i was at the time. i couldn't stop asking 'what Niger Delta is this guy in'?

he did look good in his flak vest ripping down the river with the JTF. ironically those are the guys that make me wear a ballistics vest on occasion.

 

[emraphoto]

They have missed the point of photojournalism. Anybody can supply a photo of sorts, and many are willing free of charge. But who´s going to supply the journalism to go with the photo?

the Arab Spring should have cleared up the fact that journalism left the building a long time ago.

 

[emraphoto]

Neutrality in news means looking for the truth whatever it is, sans agenda, and reporting it. Otherwise, I agree with you and simply ask if there is a better source for news? I would like to know. I generally inform myself from a myriad of sources and always question those sources for bias. I just want to find the truth myself. Most news is manipulative by nature these days which is why I called it propaganda.

If CNN is going to rely on citizen journalism then I will probably end up not watching the network any longer. Citizen journalism always has a bias.

indeed.

i think one of the challenges is that news/journalism can't be properly communicated in 140 characters.

maybe that is where regional, specialized coverage might have a roll. the al jazeera/cnn racket will roll on with the soundbites. when you want to know more? well, you get the point.

 

[Harry Mueller]

Photography will live on. So many students in high school and college still want to take a photography course. I for one will encourage the image as part of our lives and hope that design and photographs live on. Take a look at all the cameras still being sold today and the resurgence of film. Facebook site, Film is Fun for one.

 

[user237428934]

Who needs photographers. Real news now comes over Twitter. Have you seen photos on Twitter? Ok, that's a bit sarcastic and I don't even use twitter but I noticed that twitter is cited more and more in "real" news media. So if 160 characters is enough for a bit of news information then we absolutely have the state of news publishing we deserve.

And please don't overuse the term shareholder value. That sounds like they make more money by reducing cost. I assume that in this business area they desperately try to reduce loss to stay alive.

 

[Roger Hicks]

you are mistaking what they are doing for neutrality.

it's a false equivalency; just letting people who disagree with reality talk is not neutral at all. it's idiotic.

neutral is when there is NO opinion.

for example, if a new study came out talking about a decline in the ice density in glaciers due to climate change you would expect to see CNN invite both a climate scientist and some denier who has absolutely zero real expertise on the matter who now can come on tv and spout absolute horse **** with no fact check.

that is not neutrality. a neutral story invites only a scientist who has an expertise on the body of work but did not participate in or review the study for a journal. two opinions don't cancel out into a fact, they just give credibility to those who deserve none.

CNN's take on neutrality is one that I can live without. I want a news source where it is clear that it is not opinion that I am getting but just the most complete set of facts that are out there.

It doesn't happen. There is never room for "the most complete set of facts that are out there". At the most basic, the news agencies must always choose what to report: a war, or a stolen chicken? And they have to work with the people from whom they get their information.

There are two kinds of bias: admitted, or unadmitted. But it's always there. Often, it's unadmitted because the reporter doesn't realize that they're a product of their society, their education, their choices, their intelligence. Or because the reporter's biases chime with those of the person who is reading or watching the story, so that the 'consumer' (for want of a better word)can't see the bias.

Thus, for example, many Europeans regard many Americans are 'right wing' while many American regard many Europeans as 'left wing'. Or to choose more specific examples:

Being brought up in a society which offers universal health care inevitably introduces a bias when dealing with societies that don't have it.

Being brought up in a society that is completely terrified of guns (the UK) makes it hard for some people to accept that not everyone is that way (you should see the hunters and their guns by the roadside here in France).

And then there's religion...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Well said, Roger. None of us are disinterested observers. Who would want a disinterested reporter, anyway? Any time we stray into interpretation, though, our bias influences the story, and the bias becomes obvious (unless, as you said, the audience shares the same bias).

I think the difference, though, between those of us who news gather professionally and the "citizen reporter" is that most of us are aware of our own bias and attempt to keep it out of our reporting (even if it occasionally creeps in). Citizen reporters may, though, believe that the world really is as their eyes see it, and share that bias without examination.

If we lose professional, educated reporters of the news and must rely on our neighbors and their Iphones for "news," we will not be able to trust what we read or see.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Well said, Roger. None of us are disinterested observers. Who would want a disinterested reporter, anyway? Any time we stray into interpretation, though, our bias influences the story, and the bias becomes obvious (unless, as you said, the audience shares the same bias).

I think the difference, though, between those of us who news gather professionally and the "citizen reporter" is that most of us are aware of our own bias and attempt to keep it out of our reporting (even if it occasionally creeps in). Citizen reporters may, though, believe that the world really is as their eyes see it, and share that bias without examination.

If we lose professional, educated reporters of the news and must rely on our neighbors and their Iphones for "news," we will not be able to trust what we read or see.

There are two other possibilities, too.

One is to make our biases clear. Gerda Taro, Chim and Capa were NOT reporting the Spanish Civil War 'impartially': they were clearly on the Republican side. As I am on the Tibetan side when dealing with the Chinese.

The other (much clearer in the UK than the USA) is that there are media of known bias, e.g. Daily Telegraph (Torygraph) on the right, Guardian (Grauniad, Guradian) on the left. Or of course the late News of the World in the gutter. The big difference between the UK and the USA is that even though both Torygraph and Grauniad readers KNOW that they have no biases, but are the only people who can think clearly, neither can quite ignore the other's choice of newspaper.

There's wonderful old joke that I have difficulty in remembering in its entirety, but it goes something like,

The Times is read by those who think they run the country.

The Telegraph is read by those who used to run the country.

The Guardian is read by those who think they ought to run the country.

The Financial Times is read by those who own the country.

The BBC, I suspect, must be one of the most objective and best-balanced news sources, because they are attacked more or less equally by the right ("Lefties!") and the left ("Establishment arse-lickers!")

Cheers,

R.

 

[helen.HH]

iphones, flip cameras, & You Tube killed journalism around the world. Will Magnum Agency & the Leica be next? I say Occupy CNN!!!😀

haha...very Good Greg ....!!!!!!!!!...😀

 

[jsrockit]

I want a news source where it is clear that it is not opinion that I am getting but just the most complete set of facts that are out there.

You'll be wanting a long time... everyone has an agenda.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I know for a FACT that Fox News has people in the CNN newsroom who are telling the Journalists what they can and cannot write. This has been going on for several years.

Yes, but suggest that Fox leans towards the right (as does the Telegraph in the UK) and the those who like Fox will scream blue murder, because they don't want any version of the news that doesn't suit their prejudices. I know that politics is supposed to be taboo on RFF but it's flatly impossible to ignore it in the context of newsgathering.

Cheers,

R.

 

[eric rose]

Fox has people in the CNN news room calling the shots. Ya right. Where's your proof.

 

[emraphoto]

CNN has a LOT of newsrooms. they are in the process of building a huge outlet in Sarajevo.

as per Fox controlling content, i would have to see the empirical evidence on that one.