In a symbolic gesture aimed at drawing attention to a corporate decision to place cameras in the hands of reporters, photojournalists at the Baltimore Sun are staging a four-day byline strike. The Sun's parent company, the Tribune Company wants to cut costs by requiring reporters to take photographs and video of news event.
Jim Romenesko reports, "Eighteen Baltimore Sun photojournalists launched a byline strike today protesting Tribune Co.'s move to force reporters to become photographers and videographers as a way to cut costs."
For more than a decade, declining newspaper circulations, corporate downsizing, and media consolidation, have continued to impact quality journalism in a negative way.
The byline strike now brings to light the reality how fragile photojournalism, as an occupation, really is. Photojournalism, from a penny-pinching corporate perspective, is looked upon as an option in the news-gathering process. The corporate mindset seems to be that with all the latest and greatest digital technology, photojournalists have made themselves expendable.
In fact, some may even argue that photojournalism has always played second-fiddle to the word side when it comes down to editorial decision-making. When push comes to shove, after all, the history of the newspaper industry has been built on words, not pictures.
Even though photojournalism has made enormous and important contribution to the newspaper industry, the field has never truly received the respect it deserves. One of the reasons for photojournalism remains in a vulnerable position on the food chain of the corporate media culture is the fact that we are a sentimentally literate society -- we are a culture still clinging to the nostalgic idea that reading something in a newspaper has more veracity or merit than looking at news as images on the television or on the web.
It is impossible not to feel sympathy for the men and women who work so hard to capture the news in images, especially at time when our entire culture of news consumption appears to be radically altered by the Internet. At times, it seems as though everything is driven by the capacity to make money at the cost of quality.
Look at the way houses are built today as compared with those built 50 or 100 years ago. Gone are the days when pride and craftsmanship were a builder's prize asset. Today, a house is thrown up as quickly as possible, with seemingly little regard to detail.
The same can be said, then, of the newspaper industry as it appears determined to cut corners by all means possible. What appears most glaringly obvious about the Tribune demand to have reporters take on the role of photojournalist is the lack of corporate integrity in understanding how quality reportage is achieved in this country. Yes, people have been able to do more with less, but the strategy is not sustainable.