CNN purges staff photojournalists

[emraphoto]

I think firing good journalist in order to make money is absolutely disastrous on the other hand 80% of the journalists I know are no more competent or objective than the average man from the street. The remaining 20% are absolutely important for our society and democracy and I am absolutely glad they exist.

CNN and objectivity is a contradiction in itself these days. Most medias are ownes by big corporation with an agenda. Just take the reporting about Iran or Lybia objectivity is something else.
I am sorry for the journalists that will get fired and I've personaly been hoping for a newspaper and or TV Station that tells the stories that aren't told by the big media outlets or tells stories in an objective way. Maybe this will lead to journalists forming their own media (newspaper or TV).

Dominik

that is a very interesting idea for the future Dominik. i suspect some folks are looking into it right now.

 

[gm13]

well perhaps a bit premature, letting the cat out of the bags sort of affair but...

i say 'to hell' with the outlets. they are a serious pain to deal with, seem to be under the illusion that they are doing you a favour by running your work and the return on investment is not good.

in the coming year i don't plan to target/approach/rely on any media network or outlet to keep working. i think that horse has been flogged to death.

instead, a few like minded and seasoned photojournalists, a full time grant writer and researcher, a great and experienced writer and a marketing guru and i are making sure we have our yearly salary's and operating capital in place before we even begin. currently ironing out the details of a 'collective' to gets rolling.

So glad to hear, best of luck with it!

 

[Teuthida]

American media is a complete joke. It's corporate dictated pablum spooned to the brainless masses. Propaganda in the purest sense. CNN is exhibit one.

 

[emraphoto]

American media is a complete joke. It's corporate dictated pablum spooned to the brainless masses. Propaganda in the purest sense. CNN is exhibit one.

so uh, don't beat around the bush. tell us what you really think🙂

 

[benlees]

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 agree with this. The more people involved the better. If more people are engaged there is more noise. Quiet is bad. There is certainly room for cell phone pictures and professional journalism.

 

[boomguy57]

As sad as this story is, it is not really about photography or photojournalism. This is another instance of the perpetual march of corporations against the rights of workers. For the past 40-odd years workers wages, benefits, working conditions, and job security have stagnated at best, and been severely restricted if not downright criminalized at worst.

Bottom line: the future, as it stands now, has all of us working as independent contractors, day-to-day, with no job security to speak of, zero benefits, and declining pay. The worst part of it? We're all just happy to have a job at all.

The great lesson that corporations learned from the recent economic downturn is that they can make do with fewer employees. They laid off swaths of workers, and the ones that remained were so desperate to keep their jobs they agreed to pay cuts, or just doing more work for the same remuneration (which is essentially the same thing). Capitalism thrives on high unemployment--it acts to depress wages and benefits, and only helps those who own the capital, not those wage workers at the bottom.

There are certainly other variables at play here too: the explosion of digital photography, and subsequent democratization/popularization/accessibility of the medium, has made these news conglomerates realize that they can cut costs by skimping on professional photography and selling us on the "wow" factor of someone's footage of a flood from their mobile.

Times, they are 'a-changing...

 

[Teuthida]

^Well said. The "Land of the Free" has become a Corporate State, bought and sold by multinational corporate money and influence. American "Democracy" is an Orwellian sham.

The scariest part is that corporate America has convinced the very people it exploits so ruthlessly and cynicaly that it is the solution, not the problem. Its insanity.

We need a thorough going revolution.

 

[mdarnton]

*I guess citizen joutnalists are good enough for CNN

No, not citizens--since they now uncritically broadcast propaganda directly from politicians' own PR staffs, they have no need for any journalists at all.

Perhaps some of you missed, and I don't have a link at the moment, one of the NYT's editors' seeking opinions last week on his blog as to whether the NYT should make an effort to ascertain the truth of what the subjects of their stories say--as if there could be some debate about the question, and implying that the NYT doesn't currently do that. There we have the essence of contemporary journalism: it's no longer about the truth. If you think reporting lies and political propaganda is what news media does, and apprently contemporary "news" believes that, journalists aren't necessary at all.

 

[Red Robin]

Nothing new here. move along- move along.