Chicago Sun Times sacks all staff PJ

Mainecoonmaniac · May 30, 2013

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-chicago-sun-times-photo-20130530,0,4361142.story

zsas · May 30, 2013

Sorry to hear

Side note, need to fix title.....Sun Times not Trib, pls ask-a-mod for a title change

JBrunner · May 30, 2013

Title fixed.

JBrunner · May 30, 2013

it's the cheap move. Hand the reporters cameras, have them do both jobs. Hire hungry freelancers when you need them, hell, some will probably pay to shoot for a newspaper. Can hardly blame them though, newspapers are on th endangered list. No doubt some will call it progress. Personally, I don't.

Ken Nadvornick · May 30, 2013

So let me get this straight...

They fired all of their full-time staff of still photographers (including a Pulitzer Prize winner*) because,

"...our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news."

Then,

"The company is also preparing to supplement its freelance staff with reporters to shoot more video and photos..."

Geez...

I'm really sorry, but we didn't all just fall off the turnip truck. We all know what's going on here. We've all seen it before.

Ken

* "[John H.] White was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism in 1982 for his "consistently excellent work on a variety of subjects." He was selected as a photographer for the 1990 project Songs of My People. White has also won three National Headliner Awards, was the first photographer inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, was awarded the Chicago Press Photographer Association's Photographer of the Year award five times, and, in 1999, received the Chicago Medal of Merit."

John H. White (photojournalist), Wikipedia article

Barry S · May 30, 2013

The statement from the Sun-Times is completely ridiculous--we're improving our service by firing all our skilled staff. They can save even more money by firing their executive staff--freelance douche bags are plentiful.

Klainmeister · May 30, 2013

Wow, this is truly a load of BS. Boycott that paper!

vpwphoto · May 30, 2013

I wrote this obit to photography yesterday... I dedicate it to John White today.

My sermon on faith, technology and why we like photographs!? Please read... thanks.

Making a photograph 10 years ago took skill and faith.
Like a prayer the latent image vibrated in the atomic ether.
The latent image was formed by the peculiar particle or wave that travels at speed limit of the universe. A photon's ricochet off a baby's cheek then kissing a silver halide ion, changing its atomic vibration.

The latent image, that visual prayer, could hover in the netherworld for hours or decades until it was baptized in the alkaline waters rendering it an incarnate part of the physical world.

As a photographer or portrait maker, I often felt like a priest at a funeral mass.
I felt as if I were committing a person's incarnate image to "the ages".
One, two, perhaps a dozen exposures, or contemplations were made and committed to the atomic ether, the latent image, that visual prayer.

Perhaps I am waxing poetic?
I say I feel like Nik Wallenda must, being forced to use a safety net.
I used to render an entire families' celebration to the atomic ether.

I had faith, I had faith in the physics, the alkaline waters that after a couple nights' sleep I could resurrect the images back to the physical world. I was a magician, a wizard, great photographers were just that.

Someone pulled the curtain back, and rendered my darkened sanctuary obsolete, a curiosity of the past. Photons are now converted to digital representations, the transistor and binary programing though complex are now easy and magical in their near fretless use.

In our far off post apocalyptic future, I see a youngster picking up a shoe box of stuff. Discarding a hard-drive or using it as a hammer or mirror, then holding up a negative, slide or fading, but still all too real print, perhaps enshrining it, like we enshrine a cave painting or the relics of a saint.

vpwphoto · May 30, 2013

Klainmeister said:
Wow, this is truly a load of BS. Boycott that paper!

The reason this happened is mostly economic... and because people have been Boycotting Papers by being self absorbed, and reading blogs of opinions that they agree with. -- mostly.

AgX · May 30, 2013

I guess the fact that the video accomplishing that article started automatically whilst I was reading, sums up the whole situation...

Sirius Glass · May 30, 2013

The Sun Times will have no problem getting the material that they need for their stories. Since Photo Journalists make up everything from scratch with Photo$hop without the benefit of real photographs, the computer trolls will continue to manufacturer images out of nothing, just as they have been doing for years.

Real photo journalism died years ago.

semi-ambivalent · May 30, 2013

Cheer up! We'll still get lots of professional coverage from the likes of CNN's Eyewitness 'reporters', who can't hold their phones steady when an angry dog comes down the street, let alone a tornado.The Sun Times is, this time, merely its own subject.

The internet is full of such facile crap passing as a business plan. What, you can't remember your McLuhan?

s-a

Mainecoonmaniac · May 30, 2013

A related article.

http://petapixel.com/2013/05/30/how-the-internet-killed-photojournalism/

PKM-25 · May 30, 2013

Thank for this, I feel it as if you were in the room...

is this what we will become?

vpwphoto said:
My sermon on faith, technology and why we like photographs!? Please read... thanks.

Making a photograph 10 years ago took skill and faith.
Like a prayer the latent image vibrated in the atomic ether.
The latent image was formed by the peculiar particle or wave that travels at speed limit of the universe. A photon's ricochet off a baby's cheek then kissing a silver halide ion, changing its atomic vibration.

The latent image, that visual prayer, could hover in the netherworld for hours or decades until it was baptized in the alkaline waters rendering it an incarnate part of the physical world.

As a photographer or portrait maker, I often felt like a priest at a funeral mass.
I felt as if I were committing a person's incarnate image to "the ages".
One, two, perhaps a dozen exposures, or contemplations were made and committed to the atomic ether, the latent image, that visual prayer.

Perhaps I am waxing poetic?
I say I feel like Nik Wallenda must, being forced to use a safety net.
I used to render an entire families' celebration to the atomic ether.

I had faith, I had faith in the physics, the alkaline waters that after a couple nights' sleep I could resurrect the images back to the physical world. I was a magician, a wizard, great photographers were just that.

Someone pulled the curtain back, and rendered my darkened sanctuary obsolete, a curiosity of the past. Photons are now converted to digital representations, the transistor and binary programing though complex are now easy and magical in their near fretless use.

In our far off post apocalyptic future, I see a youngster picking up a shoe box of stuff. Discarding a hard-drive or using it as a hammer or mirror, then holding up a negative, slide or fading, but still all too real print, perhaps enshrining it, like we enshrine a cave painting or the relics of a saint.

zsas · May 30, 2013

AgX said:
I guess the fact that the video accomplishing that article started automatically whilst I was reading, sums up the whole situation...

The irony is the article in the OP's post about the Sun Times was written by The Tribune, the competitor to the Sun Times...

Nothing like this is ever good for anyone's community....I hope those affected can go to the Trib, freelance back to the Sun Times and pay the bills

hoffy · May 30, 2013

I blame Rupert...

Pinholemaster · May 30, 2013

Their advertisers want video, not the readers. It will end up biting them on the butt in the very short time.

Tom1956 · May 30, 2013

Sirius Glass said:
The Sun Times will have no problem getting the material that they need for their stories. Since Photo Journalists make up everything from scratch with Photo$hop without the benefit of real photographs, the computer trolls will continue to manufacturer images out of nothing, just as they have been doing for years.

Real photo journalism died years ago.

amen, brother. I remember Farina on the Our Gang shorts, saying "you said a mowwwwth--full."

Lee Rust · May 30, 2013

vpwphoto, I like your latent imagery there.. That's what we're all about.

vpwphoto · May 30, 2013

Lee Rust said:
vpwphoto, I like your latent imagery there.. That's what we're all about.

Thanks so much... it had been formed in my mind for a year... something made me put it to "digital paper" yesterday. Then the news today. I submitted it to The Indianapolis star yesterday, may be published tomorrow.

Now back to writing that country music song with the killer hook I came up with 2 years ago.

Thanks again...

Ken Nadvornick · May 30, 2013

PKM-25 said:
is this what we will become?

We already have.

Ken

vpwphoto · May 30, 2013

zsas said:
....I hope those affected can go to the Trib, freelance back to the Sun Times and pay the bills

but the Trib already has a staff that is likely too expensive for the moneybags dudes.

Then there is this hasty economic study by me posted elsewhere today.

Re: Payment of Pros when there are citizen journalists nearby----

Wondering with news how many "freebies" will be gotten from i-phone jocks. How are prices negotiated for breaking news? If you hold out for $10,000 rather than $500 and someone beats you to the punch that doesn't know what they have and is thrilled with $50, nobody wins. I know the "public" will see this as morbid for a photographer to want $10,000 or even $1000 from a great shot from something like the Boston explosion last week... but we have kids and cars, and needs. I have yet to find a grocery store that lets me redeem a "photo-credit".

-- I've seen this coming for a couple years. My photojournalism prof warned me in 1986. A few others posting here have twice my experience in the business of photojournalism. Just my two cents and I respect and appreciate insight from even more seasoned APUG members.

Mainecoonmaniac · May 30, 2013

My question with the Tribune using strictly freelancers is it going to raise or lower the quality of editorial work?

zsas · May 30, 2013

The Sun Times is the paper using freelancers.....the Tribune is the paper in your OP that wrote about the Sun Times freelancing....the Trib is the Sun Times biggest competitor...

Re your question, no...

ambaker · May 30, 2013

The problem is that there is a sea change going on that is impossible to stop.

With the advent of a camera in everything, there are cameras everywhere in our lives. The big ticket images are on the endangered list.

This has happened in other fields, and is happening in photography now.

My family ran painting companies for years, as the Home Depots of the world expanded, we did less and less business as people painted their own homes, however badly. They accepted dismal results in the name of saving money.

We needed to feed our families as well. We retreated into commercial properties only, as the unstoppable tide swept on. The improvement in paints now, and more properly, referred to as coatings required less frequent painting.

What was year wound business became seasonal.

Our family has not painted for years. Fortunately I was young enough to move on, and the others held on long enough to retire.

What was a very good paying trade is now populated by people who make no more than we did over 30 years ago.

So I fear it is with photography.

I am not trying to be heartless or cruel. I have long since lost track of how many jobs, and career paths I have had. Not because I wanted to, but because it meant survival. Most of the places I have worked, no longer exist. (Hopefully it wasn't me... ;-)

I love photography, I always have. I likely always will. But I expect more of these stories, not fewer.

Chicago Sun Times sacks all staff PJ

Mainecoonmaniac

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JBrunner

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Ken Nadvornick

Barry S

Klainmeister

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Mainecoonmaniac

PKM-25

zsas

hoffy

Pinholemaster

Tom1956

Lee Rust

vpwphoto

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Mainecoonmaniac

zsas

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Chicago Sun Times sacks all staff PJ

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