Newspaper Togs Sacked

Everyone's a photographer now. :)
 
I am afraid that considering the economic situation it is a "race to the bottom" and not just photography is affected. Instead of the private sector fuelling growth, many (most) companies are engaged in extreme forms of cost cutting.
 
andy700 said:
I am afraid that considering the economic situation it is a "race to the bottom" and not just photography is affected. Instead of the private sector fuelling growth, many (most) companies are engaged in extreme forms of cost cutting.
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The mantra is "Driving down costs to improve the bottom line...." Which has nothing to do with Price.
 
If it was your business and you could identify big savings you would make the same decision.

Things change, virtually everyone has a camera as part of their mobile, and people are there at the time of a story, not arriving 10,20, or 30 mins later.

Most pictures will probably be of acceptable quality for a newspaper.
 
cambsno said:
If it was your business and you could identify big savings you would make the same decision.

Things change, virtually everyone has a camera as part of their mobile, and people are there at the time of a story, not arriving 10,20, or 30 mins later.

Most pictures will probably be of acceptable quality for a newspaper.
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Don't disagree but I have left off the profit motive. As an owner of a business I have had to reduce my prices in order to stay competitive and that is in servicing global companies whose profit margins can be huge.

I am now "selling" my client portfolio to a larger competitor and closing my business as I may as well fill shelves at a supermarket.

I will now fully retire and relax travel and de-stress.

Not so the staff I will now no longer employ.

Ultimately the drive for increased profit margins is short sighted IMHO as the fall out falls more and more onto the community in benefits and support structures. Growing polarisation of the haves and the have sod all leaves a perverse twisting of a population increasingly ghettoed into expensive communes on sliding scale.

Business is not a social service and commerce is a driver of bringing money into the wider service/product industries to take the earned money.

Yes we no longer need lamplighters but we also need equitability in order to thrive.

It is as it always was but greed is not the proper way forward.

When is enough really enough?

Not a whinge but a feeling that our societies are really at risk due to lack of opportunity for those following us.

Steve
 
Not much of a surprise, I have many FB friends who don't see the point in photography when "all you need is an iPhone and Instagram".

Proffesional images will be replaced with poorly composed, low quality, instagramed rubbish and until those awful effects fall out of fashion, this sort of thing will be common place.
 
chicago? its already happening all over the UK
 
Hugh Jarse said:
The mantra is "Driving down costs to improve the bottom line...." Which has nothing to do with Price.
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I know, which is why I said a "race to the bottom", where companies cut staffing levels to the bare bones, and make experienced people redundant, replacing them with inexperienced personnel, which then impacts negatively on the service or product.
It has nothing to do with price;)
 
Yep it seem to be happening everywhere the age of the Newspaper photographer i think are over :(.
 
Lyonspride said:
Not much of a surprise, I have many FB friends who don't see the point in photography when "all you need is an iPhone and Instagram".

Proffesional images will be replaced with poorly composed, low quality, instagramed rubbish and until those awful effects fall out of fashion, this sort of thing will be common place.
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Theres a difference between Facebook friends and a newspaper though, I doubt theyre hoping their reporters will start using Instagram photos in the paper.
Its kinda fair though in a sense, many newspaper photographers just stick their camera in the air and get a photo, the same can easily be done with an iPhone.

KIPAX said:
chicago? its already happening all over the UK
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I was thinking the same thing.
 
I can't remember the last time I saw a decent photo in a news report. In supplements yes, but not in news, so it strikes me the news togs have been getting away with murder for years. As thrash says, anyone can stick a camera above their head and press the shutter in burst mode.

But, the article suggests the paper is getting rid not because it's going to use public stuff in place of pro togs, but because the demand is less and less for stills, and more and more for video (for their online offerings). I'd suggest that there is a bigger gap between amateur or opportunist video and pro video than there is between amateur and pro news photography, so I'm a little confused. I'd expect a pro tog to be significantly better at video than an amateur, so maybe these news togs really were unskilled snappers?
 
Southdowns said:
I can't remember the last time I saw a decent photo in a news report. In supplements yes, but not in news, so it strikes me the news togs have been getting away with murder for years. As thrash says, anyone can stick a camera above their head and press the shutter in burst mode.

But, the article suggests the paper is getting rid not because it's going to use public stuff in place of pro togs, but because the demand is less and less for stills, and more and more for video (for their online offerings). I'd suggest that there is a bigger gap between amateur or opportunist video and pro video than there is between amateur and pro news photography, so I'm a little confused. I'd expect a pro tog to be significantly better at video than an amateur, so maybe these news togs really were unskilled snappers?
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There are still plenty of great press photo's, but the quality in the tabloids appears to have gone downhill.

World Press awards
UK picture editors guild awards
The Press Photographers Year
 
Phil V said:
There are still plenty of great press photo's, but the quality in the tabloids appears to have gone downhill.
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Guessing the tabloids are not really bothered - after all, how many pictures of paedos and terrorists do you need to see.
 
Phil V said:
There are still plenty of great press photo's, but the quality in the tabloids appears to have gone downhill.
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Yes you're right, but I'm not convinced those people are taking shots for news as such, maybe more editorial, supplements or celebrity?

Just look at the categories in the picture editor's guild one:

Sport needs special access to the event, royal and celebrity (and probably business) need special access to the individuals. Yes the news photographer winner is extremely good, but as you imply, you'd not expect to see any of those shots in a tabloid; they're more interested in a phone picture of a bloodied terrorist or a body, unless that is you're shooting for page three. Even then, I'd say the togs that do page three stuff, or equivalent, are at the lower end of the glamour photography scale, creatively at least.

Maybe it's just that there's no longer any room for the also ran news pro's; the best will always have work. I hope :)
 
Southdowns said:
Sport needs special access to the event,
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----8<-------

Not only does a lot of sport require licence.. some require good equipment such as long lens for cricket.. no licence needed but two loal papers hire me simply because I have the long lens..


Southdowns said:
Maybe it's just that there's no longer any room for the also ran news pro's; the best will always have work. I hope :)
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I work part time for newsquest and I just got a pay rise and extra hrs... the paper is upping its page count and sports coverage.. especialy grass roots sports pull out it does...all good for me.. some say its a last throw of the dice for them... who knows.. still publishing two versions 6 days a week
 
simonblue said:
Yep it seem to be happening everywhere the age of the Newspaper photographer i think are over :(.
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IMO the age of the newspaper is preety much over too - certainly of the diversity of titles

with the rise of interwebbery and social media , fewer and fewer people will be looking to paper for reporting of news anyway

if fewer people are buying papers then it stand to reason that papers will either have to raise prices or cut costs to maintain the same margin - and since raising prices in a falling market isnt a viable option it has to be cost cutting
 
Plenty of freelancers shooting fat celebs - they don't need anything else really to make the sales :lol:
for anything else iphone is "good enough"

This probably explains why I do not buy newspapers

P.S. Did I say papers are very bad for forests and environment? :)
 
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So... 30 People have been made redundant in Chicago....
Hardly earth shattering.
Any one remember Eddie Shar & the "Today" bombshell?
How many people still get a Daily Paper?
 
More **** poor headlines, nobody was sacked, they were made redundant, totally different.

But yes this is a sign of the times, why pay national insurance, pensions, holiday pay and all the rest to an employee when you can get the same photos from a freelancer for far far less total cost.
 
It's bad all over for news photographers, when the local town flooded the local papers put it all over social media that anyone with any photos please add them to their page, all done instantly and the page had hundreds of photos to choose from for their paper, all free of course.

Locally sports photography seems to do well. The locals seem to like to read about and look at decent pics of local teams.
 
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