More Bad News in Print Photojournalism

New York Daily News Staff Photographer David Handschuh was badly injured by falling debris on the job on 9/11. Photo by Todd Maisel/New York Daily News

Written by Jim Hughes

As rather gleefully announced in today's edition of its arch-rival, the New York Post, the New York Daily News has fired veteran photographer David Handschuh, whose injury and survival while photographing during the twin towers' collapse on 9/11 has become the stuff of legend. "For me," David wrote on his Facebook page about the World Trade Center site he had earlier driven past, "it was the place where my life was luckily spared while photographing for the Daily News. The ironic part, I was driving into the office to be fired from my job, a position I have so proudly held for 27 years this month.... My co-workers, who are the most dedicated of creative spirits, are living in an insane asylum."

Also shown the door, according to the Post, were Deputy Photo Editor Jim Alcorn, Night Photo Editor Kevin Coughlin, photo editors Karlo Pastrovic and David Pokress, and photojournalists Mark Bonifacio, Andrew Theodorakis, Enid Alvarez and Aaron Showalter, along with Copy Chief Phil Cornell. These firings follow a similar purge at the News last year which saw some two dozen from the editorial staff let go. Speculation is that owner Mort Zuckerman, who made his fortune in real estate, wants more emphasis and resources directed toward the digital side.

The Daily News once billed itself as "New York's Picture Newspaper," and even now includes a symbolic press camera as part of its logo. There was a time when I would advise young people wanting to get into photojournalism to start with a staff job at a daily newspaper. Print, I believed, was a learning laboratory that would live forever. Seems that is no longer true, and my well-intentioned advice is no longer good, and hasn't been for some time. I can only wring my ink-stained hands.

Jim

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©2014 by Jim Hughes, all rights reserved

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Featured Comments from:

John Camp: "Do you think there's a possibility that they're firing photojournalists because they're replacing them with...something better? Or, at least, in some ways better? How many of the most amazing 9/11 shots were done by pro photographers—like the plane about to hit the tower? I was a news guy for much of my career, until I was in my mid-forties, and though I was a 'pencil' reporter, I also shot quite a few photos because of my photographic hobby, so I both sympathize and empathize with PJs.

"But: the 'best' PJ photos are almost always accidents—few PJs are standing there with their Nikon or Canons when a building explodes, a cop goes down, etc. But the photos of those things often can be quickly 'crowd-sourced,' and for almost no cost. PJs react to events, and get there later; crowds take photos of the event itself. It wasn't a PJ who took the photos of the Rodney King beating that set off the LA riots...or, for that matter, of the assassination of John Kennedy or the prison shots at Abu Ghraib, or, judging from their quality, most of the shots coming out of the crash site of Flight 17....

"I think a lot of PJ work in the future is going to be set events and portraits, and you don't need a huge staff for that, or even a lot of experience—it was work that was given to rookies in the past. And newspapers, which have become financially weak, are also struggling toward a future that is more on-line, and do believe they need to shift resources. (That apparently was part of the reason that the top editor at the New York Times was fired—she wasn't moving toward digital quickly enough.)

"It's a complicated mess, and a lot of people are going to get hurt. I don't have a lot of faith that news gathering will be improved, but I do have some feeling that we will actually see more (at least viewable) photography of critical events, just because everybody carries an iPhone now."

Comments

[Manuel]

Another bold step into idiocy, I'd say. It won't be long before we see a journalist at a war scenario fiddling with an iPhone.
The golden age of photography is gone. Today I was reading an article on a photography website which is now more oriented to smartphones and drone photography; I found that lenses are now considered 'peripherals.'
The other day some silly dude asked me to take a picture of him and his friend at a rather cheesy location; he handed me... a tablet! That was the dumbest thing I ever used to take a picture, but some people seem to find it more than acceptable for taking pictures.
If this is what photography is coming to, little wonder newspapers don't feel the need of having good photojournalists: people don't give a toss about creativity, photographic skills or image quality.
Adapt or die!

[cfw]

I know little about traditional print media companies, but what's really going on here? When I read these stories about mass firings I always wonder: Why does the shift to "...more emphasis and resources directed toward the digital side" necessitate the layoffs and firings of photographers/photojournalists?

I can see the need for downsizing, say, in areas like the company's distribution network, or a department like storage and darkroom processing. But these companies still need to have someone taking pictures, post-processing, editing, layout, etc, and given the relative ease of utilizing digital versus print material, I would think they would need/want more photographers for their online product.

[DavidF]

It's happening in Australia too: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/fairfax-announces-80-editorial-redundancies

[Hugh Smith]

It's sad as many of us got our baptisms in photojournalism in newspapers. I really don't know where this is headed, but I don't think I like it.
My two pesos.

[William Schneider]

Manuel wrote "... It won't be long before we see a journalist at a war scenario fiddling with an iPhone."

It's already been done. Take a look at the Libyan Revolution pictures of Michael Christopher Brown. He was with Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros when they were killed in an RPG attack, and he was wounded himself.

iPhone or not, he's a classically trained photojournalist and understands journalism law and ethics plus the myriad of other issues needed to do his job well.

While he used an iPhone in Libya, photojournalists like him have other skills that some people in management believe to be unnecessary. That's the real problem.

[Chris Klug]

Sadness, really. The work of all these men and women capturing moments in the world around me affected me and my image-making my entire life. We are now in the most narcissistic of times, where snapshots (my old photography teacher, Klaus Schnitzer, would pronounce the word 'schnapshots' -- as if he had tasted something vile -- ) of oneself now have a name that makes me shudder everytime I hear it, and I will not reproduce it here.

[Terry Letton]

Presumably concentrating on the digital side really means stealing their content from someone else rather than creating their own In which case, who needs them, just die.

[Herman]

Photojournalists now seem to be getting the big picture.

[Richard]

I was just saying the other day while looking at the news that the art of photojournalism has been lost, its just wide cell phone shots and video grabs. A real shame.

[Herman]

I shutter to think what's happening to photojournalism. It's no longer black and white.

[Marc Rochkind]

How is this a "purge?" The paper doesn't want to pay as much for the photography department. This has been going on for years. It's unfortunate, but I'm sure this is a business decision (smart or dumb), not a personal attack on these people.

It's natural to expect photographers who read TOP to expect that their like should be employed regardless of the economics of the employer, but I hope we're all adult enough to understand that that's not how the world works.

[MHMG]

Photographic journalism got "crowd-sourced" or otherwise made irrelevant in the digital age as have many other once viable careers, my own included. I have no further comment other than to quote a Joni Mitchell song " you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone".

[Sean]

"I think a lot of PJ work in the future is going to be set events and portraits, and you don't need a huge staff for that, or even a lot of experience—it was work that was given to rookies in the past."

If you say so, but not necessarily true. But there are plenty of 'experts' who reckon they know how to do a better job. It's like firing a team of carpenters because you can finish the build with everything from Ikea. But what about the next build, and the one after that. While firing the entire photographic team looks like economic sense, how will it looks later on when the product looks valueless to the consumer. Value in value out.

One local newspaper I was involved in had it's assets sweated by the new owner untill there was nothing left. It was a joke, one that ruined the paper in the readership and local advertisers minds. The original owner bought it back, and can't resurrect it, they are just barely holding on.

Any media organisation which retains it's photographic department and it's stored repository of knowledge and deploys it efficiently in today's market has a significant advantage.

But as with many things, accountants prefer to do things on the cheap with demoralised and underpaid staff. Suddenly, a newspaper stops being a newspaper and becomes a free sheet.

It's a win for everybody? Right?