Chicago Sun Times sacks all staff PJ

[zsas]

They do it to themselves.

^Or did we also change too to the same thing? I quit my Tribune subscription years back, I check the Trib on their nifty (free) iPhone app..love their PJ's....

 

[Prof_Pixel]

I wonder just how many people here actually subscribe to their daily local paper.


(For the record, I do.)

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I did for over 20 years at my current location. Finally threw in the towel and canceled when they gutted the paper to the point I couldn't get any real news out of the thing.

They stopped covering international news. Then they largely stopped covering national news. They shrank, then eliminated the editorial pages (my favorite). And the comics. Then they shrank the physical size of the paper itself. They continually reduced the remaining local-only "news" coverage. About all that was left was stories about whether we should have red light ticketing cameras near the elementary schools. I needed a little more than that and the high school football scores.

A few years ago I walked up to the paper's booth at the local state fairgrounds. The girl there said they were soliciting suggestions for improving the paper. I replied, how about start by putting back some real news stories. And the editorials. And the comics. She just stared at me. Apparently better content was not a checkbox on her form.

Or, more telling...

I know someone who applied for a software development job at The Seattle Times. Was told the interview was going along great until the question was asked, "Do you prefer to read the news online or on paper?" When the answer was "mostly online, but sometimes it's still really nice to sit down with a real printed newspaper on a Saturday morning" the interview was essentially over. And not with a positive outcome.

When the newspapers themselves do not even have faith in their own product they have sealed their own fates.

And yes, there are parallels here...

Ken

 

[Sirius Glass]

I know someone who applied for a software development job at The Seattle Times. Was told the interview was going along great until the question was asked, "Do you prefer to read the news online or on paper?" When the answer was "mostly online, but sometimes it's still really nice to sit down with a real printed newspaper on a Saturday morning" the interview was essentially over. And not with a positive outcome.

Honest answers are not always good for interviews. One needs to be saying yes to everything especially when ones mind is screaming "NO!".

 

[batwister]

When your cool, new-age, high-tech business model says you must fire Pulitzer Prize award winning staff photographers and replace them with random teenagers with IPhone video cameras who just happened to be walking by, I think it tells you all you need to know about the intellectual and technological Walmart-ization of not just the newspaper industry, but of your very culture itself.

Ken

Perfectly put, great post.

Thing is, most of you guys can observe these sea changes from a comfortable distance at this point. Try being 25 in the midst of it and having a conscience. At least I'm not 18 I guess...

 

[PKM-25]

Perfectly put, great post.

Thing is, most of you guys can observe these sea changes from a comfortable distance at this point. Try being 25 in the midst of it and having a conscience. At least I'm not 18 I guess...

But that is the beauty of being young, you get handed a world of poop and then make sound decisions for your self to innovate your way forward beyond it. And it is not always youth nor technology that has any bearing on innovation, sometimes it is simply figuring out what direction you want your life to go and then everything starts to make sense to the point that you don't take it so personally, so you relax....and then the innovation comes, regardless of age.

When I am being utterly true to my self and to be quite honest, severely limit my time on the internet, I go forward in big strides, my personal and professional life do better almost instantly.

As a professional photographer who has carefully cut a deep niche, I know for a fact I have more to offer than to have my work's value be the decision of everyone around me. But I don't know whether to sympathize with or slap the Sun photogs who stayed on so long, I left staff newspaper work nearly ten years ago in seeing what was coming...the sad thing being it is going to get so much worse in that genre...

To hell with "Adapt or Die", why follow? Innovate or Die I say....

 

[vpwphoto]

Ok Ken and VPW - Where are you getting the info that the Sun Times is going to use crowd-sourced-kids-off-the-street-with-iPhones for their videography? I, like all of you are sad to hear those still photographers in my community are affected, though your characterization of videography as somehow the most revolting media in the world is frankly rude to anyone in videography. I respect your dissatisfaction with the Sun Times move, but respectfully disagree with your characterization of those who are videographers. I think you are venting about more than what is actually occurring here...

I HAVE SAID NOTHING OF DISRESPECT to video producers... NOTHING.

The local Ganett paper and TV station are constantly encouraging and using amatures for run-of the mill stories and news.
It's where we are, I have said nothing of disrespect, just making economic observations. Period... done with this.

I have done ENG videography for 3 decades.... nuf said about whatever disrespect conjured that I have.

 

[vpwphoto]

I wonder just how many people here actually subscribe to their daily local paper.


(For the record, I do.)

+1

 

[zsas]

Ok VPM, I was responding to the statements in #36 and your implied endorsement of such sentiment in #37. If you feel your endorsement of #36 via #37 doesn't include the bashing of videography, I am sorry for not realizing "bingo" only endoresed some of #36's sentiment. I've worked in the videography industry and it is as tough as any and an art, and wont stand here and let videography be marginalized.

 

[hoffy]

I wonder just how many people here actually subscribe to their daily local paper.


(For the record, I do.)

If the ONLY source for daily print news in your city was owned by Rupert Murdoch, would you?
(Yes, I do have a massive problem with him. I'm glad he lost his Australian citizenship )

 

[Sirius Glass]

I wonder just how many people here actually subscribe to their daily local paper.


(For the record, I do.)

I no longer do.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I've worked in the videography industry and it is as tough as any and an art, and wont stand here and let videography be marginalized.

Can't speak for 'vpwphoto', but from my perspective it's not about using videography. Or about videography's inherent difficulty or place as an art form. Both of those are acknowledged givens. It's about using videography as a (lame) excuse to can all of your talented still photographers, including a Pulitzer Prize award winner. And then implying that move will result in a better overall news product.

Our audience demands more video clips. So all of you still photo guys are fired.

Really??

How many remember the single most famous (American) combat photo of WWII? How many also remember that Joe Rosenthal won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography with that photograph of the US Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima?

And how many more remember that there is also a full-color motion picture clip of that exact same event filmed by Bill Genaust? And that Mr. Genaust was standing only a few feet to the right of Mr. Rosenthal at that exact same moment? And that one of the frames in that clip is, for all practical purposes, an exact duplicate of the award winning black-and-white still photograph?

Since when did news-related video clips and still photographs suddenly become mutually exclusive entities to be pitted against each other in a perverse game of musical chairs?

Ken

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Since when did news-related video clips and still photographs suddenly become mutually exclusive entities to be pitted against each other in a game of musical chairs?

With the advent of the world wide web they are both pieces of the same content 'pie' and those preparing content, must now be able to work in both media.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Canning your entire still photography staff in favor of substituting video is not "working in both media..."

Ken

 

[zsas]

Re post #63 - They didn't....Rodney King and Tiananmen Square resonate as much to me as Wright State and Neda Agha-Soltan. Sun Times still has photographers (sadly 1099 employees), you are making this a polarizing-binary-debate that all photography is dead surpassed by video. This changing of the workforce (especially in media) is happening everywhere (and has always happened, just harken back to Guttenberg)....for eg, instead of full time professors, a university will hire two part time professors (just 1099 em).....the world has changed, we all see it. As PMK said, innovate, redefine, etc.....like most of you, I've worked most this weekend...not on yesterday's dogma, but tomorrows.....

I think we all see change, let's just not pit the artists (eg videographers vs still) against eachother just because the customers of say the Sun Times are more streaming media than say the Tribune....

If you've ever read both papers you might understand that they really do have different base.

I, like everyone here, are sad re those 28 photographers, lets take that off the table....

We all LOVE photography and if we had our druthers all homes would have darkrooms, as per some law....

 

[Prof_Pixel]

Canning your entire still photography staff in favor of substituting video is not "working in both media..."

Ken

Like I said back in message #40: ... "reporters of the future need to be triple threat players: reporters, still photographers and videographers. I guess now they must also be social media experts as well."

The day of the stand alone photographer is probably pretty well gone.

 

[vpwphoto]

MY POINTS....

Some of the best photojournalism was done on film, distributed via primitive equipment like the old Harris AP scanners.

Photojournalism has never been a high paying career. Usually just enough to live on and do what you love.

$40 per assignment fee's are not worth my time- 10 assignments a week won't cover my cost in this cheap town I live in.

IF I have bill-able assignments totaling a weekly average of $1000.... after expenses I still barely clear $30,000 a year.
I'm 47... If citizen journalist get a fix for free or for $40 fine, I'll find a new thing to be passionate about.... and their passion will wane, and I understand the moneybags people don't care who does the job as long as there are people lining up to work for free or almost free.

All I know is next time an organization like Bloomberg calls me I'm not working for $200. If someone else thinks working for a place called Bloomberg to "get their foot in the door, or build a portfolio" for $200 for exclusive rights, don't say I didn't try to tell you, you will be 47 and wondering why you tried.

No disrespect to anyone, yes I am venting. I eat lunch once or twice a year with a 85+ year old WWII photographer, he see's his footage late at night on the Time-Life WWII video collection advert. ...poor guy can't get away for the horror... and Time Life is making the money on that too.

It's not just newspapers... the "top shelf" area advert agency, stopped using people with $20,000 rigs and experience two decades high. A high school kid with a DSLR his dad bought him is the new go-to video production house in the area. It just bites what technology has done... I tried to warn this youngster not to get too excited because the kid he needs to worry about is likely in 6th grade......

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Not familiar with US newspapers, but the announcement doesn't make a skerrick of sense to me. How can anything be improved, including but not limited to, the bottom line and efficiencies, by dispensing with dedicated photographers? I have never heard of this taking place here in Australia, and never hope to, but given the drama that cloud computing and storage is having on traditional IT positions being sacrificed because of "outsourced online efficiencies" it just might happen in the future. I think decisions like this will actually cause a drop in readership because the quality of the work (photography, videos etc.) will not be of the same benchmark that long-time readers are accustomed to.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Here's some gallows humor on about this thread...

http://petapixel.com/2013/06/03/when-photojournalists-get-fired/#more-113185

 

[Diapositivo]

I think the IPhone will soon be the past.

With devices like a Google glass you can have a motion picture record videos in "subjective" POV and instantly send it to some server.
You can give the glasses vocal instructions and you can record anything while having your hands engaged in something else.

For instance you can systematically record all your driving. If and when a road accident happens you can easily have a video with the dynamics of the accident. Else you delete the record.

You could actually do this all the time while walking. In a not distant future you can have your glasses record all your "life" and automatically discard all videos after let's say three days unless you want to keep something relevant.

If the landing in Normandy (or wherever) had to happen in 2014 or so, literally thousands of subjective videos would be recorded, live with the enemy shooting at you. Thousands of Robert "Capas" taking pictures at the same time. Actually Google glasses would continue sending videos to the servers while the soldier has already died.

I don't know how this foreseeable progress can be stopped, or if it is really so frightening to live on a planet where all your social interactions might be recorded on a video, all the quarrelling at condominium reunions, all the queries at school.

Remember a camera now can be absolutely microscopic. Google glasses have a distinctive "screen" for feed-back from the device, but if you can do without feed-back, hiding a camera in glasses will be just very very easy. Or you can have it permanently installed in your car, bicycle, motorbike, or on your dog.

I don't think that "fine art" photography will ever die but I do think that "reportage" photography will basically cease to exist in a few years.

 

[pstake]

As a recovering newspaper reporter, I am saddened but not surprised by this.

The Sun Times is basically just the first to go. Reporters are already expected to do so much at any paper these days, it's impossible for them to find time or energy to do bonafide, analytical, thoughtful and balanced reporting about anything below the surface. Traditional journalism is circling the drain. Fortunately, there are folks like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert cutting through the haze.


http://www.colbertnation.com/the-co...877/june-05-2013/photojournalists-vs--iphones

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

I think the IPhone will soon be the past.

With devices like a Google glass you can have a motion picture record videos in "subjective" POV and instantly send it to some server.
You can give the glasses vocal instructions and you can record anything while having your hands engaged in something else.

For instance you can systematically record all your driving. If and when a road accident happens you can easily have a video with the dynamics of the accident. Else you delete the record.

You could actually do this all the time while walking. In a not distant future you can have your glasses record all your "life" and automatically discard all videos after let's say three days unless you want to keep something relevant.

If the landing in Normandy (or wherever) had to happen in 2014 or so, literally thousands of subjective videos would be recorded, live with the enemy shooting at you. Thousands of Robert "Capas" taking pictures at the same time. Actually Google glasses would continue sending videos to the servers while the soldier has already died.

I don't know how this foreseeable progress can be stopped, or if it is really so frightening to live on a planet where all your social interactions might be recorded on a video, all the quarrelling at condominium reunions, all the queries at school.

Remember a camera now can be absolutely microscopic. Google glasses have a distinctive "screen" for feed-back from the device, but if you can do without feed-back, hiding a camera in glasses will be just very very easy. Or you can have it permanently installed in your car, bicycle, motorbike, or on your dog.

I don't think that "fine art" photography will ever die but I do think that "reportage" photography will basically cease to exist in a few years.

"Foreseeable progress" has just been stopped in its tracks. In Australia, Google Glasses have been banned in all casinos, courts, and university testing areas.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Paper version is still better than the digital version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBIUEPyFLTE

 

[removed account4]

Some of the best photojournalism was done on film, distributed via primitive equipment like the old Harris AP scanners.

Photojournalism has never been a high paying career. Usually just enough to live on and do what you love.

$40 per assignment fee's are not worth my time- 10 assignments a week won't cover my cost in this cheap town I live in.

IF I have bill-able assignments totaling a weekly average of $1000.... after expenses I still barely clear $30,000 a year.
I'm 47... If citizen journalist get a fix for free or for $40 fine, I'll find a new thing to be passionate about.... and their passion will wane, and I understand the moneybags people don't care who does the job as long as there are people lining up to work for free or almost free.

All I know is next time an organization like Bloomberg calls me I'm not working for $200. If someone else thinks working for a place called Bloomberg to "get their foot in the door, or build a portfolio" for $200 for exclusive rights, don't say I didn't try to tell you, you will be 47 and wondering why you tried.

No disrespect to anyone, yes I am venting. I eat lunch once or twice a year with a 85+ year old WWII photographer, he see's his footage late at night on the Time-Life WWII video collection advert. ...poor guy can't get away for the horror... and Time Life is making the money on that too.

It's not just newspapers... the "top shelf" area advert agency, stopped using people with $20,000 rigs and experience two decades high. A high school kid with a DSLR his dad bought him is the new go-to video production house in the area. It just bites what technology has done... I tried to warn this youngster not to get too excited because the kid he needs to worry about is likely in 6th grade......

EXACTLY!

 

[removed account4]

in the 1990s newspapers were giving their reporters a p/s camera and having them take a photograph after they did the interview.
that was the "first time" papers started to fire their photography staff.
stories like this are old-news ( 20 year old news ) ..
it is sad when it happens, and when it does you learn who was actually behind the camera
( through the grapevine, like the internet ) ,,,
probably in a few years the pendulum will swing the other way, people will get bored with bad "newshound" video
and they will hire a staff of photographers who have a clue.