Death of photojournalism ??

[BullcreekBob]

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Has the time come to take photojournalism off life-support? After nearly 25 years in the business, agency director Neil Burgess steps forward to make the call.

1 August 2010
For the last thirty-odd years, I’ve been listening to people talk about, or predict the death of photojournalism. John Szarkowski, the legendary curator of photography at MOMA New York even said that photojournalism stopped being interesting after 1958; I was just out of nappies then. Yet, somehow I’ve devoted just about all my working life to social documentary photography and nearly 25 years to photojournalism.

During that period we have lived through so much change: the globalisation of the media, the move from film to digital, the invention of the internet, and the acceptance of photography as ‘art’. A 10 × 8 print by Edward Weston – an image of a nautilus shell from the same series as one I’ve had as a postcard on my bathroom wall for as long as I can remember – sold at auction for more than a million dollars in April 2010. A lot of change.

We’ve been through major recessions; times when the advertising dollar shrank, massive lay-offs and editorial budgets tightened, but still there was a commitment to the photojournalist and what he or she produced. Even as the millennium dawned I was telling people that there was more photojournalism around now than in the 1950’s and 60’s, it’s just spread amongst more magazines. That was probably true then. Not so now.

No funding for photographers to act as reporters
Today I look at the world of magazine and newspaper publishing and I see no photojournalism being produced. There are some things which look very like photojournalism, but scratch the surface and you’ll find they were produced with the aid of a grant, were commissioned by an NGO, or that they were a self-financed project, a book extract, or a preview of an exhibition.

Magazines and newspapers are no longer putting any money into photojournalism. They will commission a portrait or two. They might send a photographer off with a writer to illustrate the writer’s story, but they no longer fund photojournalism. They no longer fund photo-reportage. They only fund photo illustration.

We should stop talking about photojournalists altogether. Apart from a few old dinosaurs whose contracts are so long and retirement so close that it’s cheaper to keep them on, there is no journalism organisation funding photographers to act as reporters. A few are kept on to help provide ‘illustration’ and decorative visual work, but there is simply no visual journalism or reportage being supported by so called news organisations.

Seven British-based photographers won prizes at the ‘World Press Photo’ competition this year and not one of them was financed by a British news organisation. But this is not just a UK problem. Look at TIME and Newsweek, they are a joke. I cannot imagine anyone buys them on the news-stand anymore. I suspect they only still exist because thousands of schools, and libraries and colleges around the world have forgotten to cancel their subscriptions. Even though they have some great names in photojournalism on their mastheads, when did you last see a photo-essay of any significance in these news magazines?

The wire services have concentrated on development of TV and internet services and focused on financial intelligence to pay the bills, rather than news as it happens. They rely on stringers and on ‘citizen journalists’ when there’s a breaking story, not professional photojournalists.

First to go have been the photojournalists, next it’s the writers
Sure, there may always be the need for specialist sports photographers, portraitists, fashion photographers and a news guy to smudge the President when he shows up to a press conference, but what about the guys who produce stories, who cover issues rather than events? Newspapers and magazines don’t employ them anymore.

Should we care? Well yes we should. The other photographers cover events which are organised by someone else; events arranged by spin-doctors, PR agents, press secretaries, advertising and marketing executives. Looking at all news and current affairs these days it’s so obvious that what you are seeing or reading is regurgitated information fed to the news organisation by someone else’s press department.

The photojournalists were the first to go, but once the destruction of the printed media business model is complete and still no-one has come up with a new one, then the writers will have to go as well. So we’ll end up with a couple of sub-editors re-phrasing press-releases and dropping in supplied photos. Hell, that’s happening already!

I believe we owe it to our children to tell them that the profession of ‘photojournalist’ no longer exists. There are thousands of the poor bastards, creating massive debt for themselves hoping to graduate and get a job which no-one is prepared to pay for anymore.

Even when photographers create brilliant stories and the magazine editors really want to publish them, they cannot pay a realistic price for the work.

Zapping with 50,000 volts
We have now reached the stage where magazine supplements offer me less for a story which might be used over a cover and eight pages than their associated papers pay me for a single picture of a celebrity.

The picture editors shrug and say, “This is just the way it is.” But, it is an active decision that has been taken by the managing editors who believe that photojournalism is not valued, it can be got for free, and so needs no budget. Money is still around in newspapers, it’s just that it’s spent on other things.

I woke up this morning with a dream going around in my head. It was as if I’d been watching a medical drama, ER or something, where they’d spent half the programme trying to revive a favourite character: mouth to mouth, blood transfusions, pumping the chest up and down, that electrical thing where they shout “Clear!” before zapping them with 50,000 volts to get the heart going again, emergency transplants and injections of adrenalin …, but nothing works. And someone sobs, “We’ve got to save him we cannot let him die.” And his best friend steps forward, grim and stressed and says, “It’s no good. For God’s sake, somebody call it!”

Okay, I’m that friend and I’m stepping forward and calling it. “Photojournalism: time of death 11.12. GMT 1st August 2010.” Amen.

[surenj]

Interesting Bob, I would like to hear other peoples' thoughts on this. I know vaguely that David Hobby (Strobist) got laid off after many years of service to the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

[aim54x]

It is a sad thought, photographers are no longer needed by the print media, not as photojournalists. Then the magic of photo reportage will die with them. I have dreamt of being a photojournalist at times, but I guess I can strike that off my list, not that it was ever going to be a plausible profession.

[BullcreekBob]

 BTW, here the link to the original article.

http://www.epuk.org/Opinion/961/for-gods-sake-somebody-call-it

[surenj]

Also read the strobist discussion

http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/discuss/72157624638711526/

[Raskill]

I disagree to a degree..

I would stand my motorsport images against any just now, in fact, I wince when I see some images that grace the cover of AutoAction sometimes.

You need to be more than the photojournalist now, you need to be the whole package. When I shoot for a newsgroup, I supply high quality images and an article. If you want to stay in the game (and I like to keep my feet in the water a little bit), then you have to adapt.

Of course, the folks from Reuters, Getty or AP will always produce top quality work I will always aspire to. And their market approach allows photojournalism to exist.

It's the same argument that the 'dad with camera' has ruined the professional photographers life. Well, I'm sorry, if you want to charge so much for images that can be supplied elsewhere, and don't want to offer anything that makes people sit up and take notice, then be prepared to miss out. Is there going to be jobs where someone goes for the cheap option and gets sh!t images in return, of course, but are they the type of jobs that kept professional photographers afloat anyway?

Not trying to be a troll, just trying to point out that things change.

From my Army days I recall the following: "Improvise, Adapt and Overcome" It doesn't just apply to the Infantry.

[ATJ]

If Photojournalism is dead, or nearly so, who's funding all those photographers with really long lenses you see at every largish sporting event?

Maybe it is dead in news, but that doesn't appear to be the case in sports.

[gstark]

If Photojournalism is dead, or nearly so, who's funding all those photographers with really long lenses you see at every largish sporting event?

But is that really photojournalism?

Respectfully, I enjoy sports, but I don't really count the shooting of sports as serious photojournalism. And you're very welcome to open a new thread to discuss the can of worms I've just opened.

To me, photojournalism - and this is sort of referred to in the quoted article - is more like the stuff we used to see in Time and Life magazines. But not necessarily just the photo stories; more particularly within the power inherent within each individual image.

While those mags' days are past, there is little that can match the power of a well made photo.

Look at the great works from Magnum and Getty ... several years ago I was on a trip to LA and visited the Getty, where they had a couple of photo exhibitions on, one of which was called Photos For The Press. This was a display of maybe forty or so images from maybe the mid 20th century, including some WWII shots by Capa, Some Larry Ellison's from Vietnam, the original image of Kim Phuoc running from her village which had been napalmed ... I seem to recall mentioning it here at the time.

Most of the images on display had won a Pulitzer Prize, and most of the images had a power that I'm unable to describe. mentally, seeing this exhibition exhausted me, such was the power of what I had seen.

And there are photographers, today, who are capable of shooting images every bit as good as those, several of them regularly visit and post here.

As long as people are able to take those sorts of images - single images that will take your breath away - then photojournalism is alive and well, and will probably never die.

[Raskill]

If Photojournalism is dead, or nearly so, who's funding all those photographers with really long lenses you see at every largish sporting event?

But is that really photojournalism?

Yes, have a look at some of the work by Steve Christo, Vince Caligiuri, Tim Clayton or any number of top shelf shooters. I guess photojournalism requires the image to tell the story, rather than just show whats happening, and these guys (and many more) can do that.

To me, photojournalism - and this is sort of referred to in the quoted article - is more like the stuff we used to see in Time and Life magazines. But not necessarily just the photo stories; more particularly within the power inherent within each individual image.

I agree, but only so far. This era was the halcyon days, where magazines like the ones you mention made their mark. But, like everything, it has evolved to include what we see today in every magazine, including sports. Even the much maligned Paparazzi could be considered photojournalism, sometimes...

While those mags' days are past, there is little that can match the power of a well made photo.

Indeed, one photo can change the world. Joe Rosenthal's image from Iwo Jima secured funding to allow the prosecution of the US war effort, by contrast, Eddie Adams photo of an execution in a Saigon street helped sway further anti war sentiment. 2 photos, but look how they changed the world we live in today. I've seen some spectacular images coming out of current conflicts, but these two images really stick in my mind

As long as people are able to take those sorts of images - single images that will take your breath away - then photojournalism is alive and well, and will probably never die.

Indeed. I enjoy National Geographic magazine for this very reason. Photojournalism will never die, it might change, but the power an image has on us emotionally, as a nation, or an individual, will ensure it's around longer than all of us.