A link to a story on the National Press Photographers Association list-serv this morning caught my attention.
An article on the website Hold the Front Page reports that a newspaper in England, The Manchester Evening News, is ditching its six-member photo staff and replacing them with "casual photographers" and photo agency pictures.
The move, according to newspaper management, is one that will change the way the publication works "in order to thrive in a digital future."
In other words, thriving in a digital future is management blither-blather for sacrificing journalistic integrity and quality for cheaper content and more quantity. To thrive in the future, for business owners, means cutting trained professional news staffs in order to increase company profits.
After all, why should a newspaper have to pay a full-time staff photojournalist when it can exploit "casual photographers" who are willing to offer them pictures at zero, or, next to zero cost?
The economics of keeping newspapers running in a declining market is understandable. However, justifying the cuts by saying that a staff photojournalist position is now "redundant" in a digital age is hard to come to terms with.
The handwriting on the wall for the newspaper industry actually began in the 1980s with a structural shift in editorial-advertising practices and management styles. I am inclined to think that what we are now witnessing at many newspapers is not only the result of these shifts, but also a failure by journalists to identify ways to sustain their profession in the future.
If newspapers can replace photojournalists with "casual photographers", then they certainly can replace reporters and editors with "casual" staffs as well.
Read the term "casual" here to mean volunteer content providers and an over-reliance on "hand-outs" from sources outside the journalistic profession.