A regional publisher has been accused by union bosses of trying to make photographers “extinct” after further job cuts were revealed.
Newsquest is cutting photographic staff at its newspapers in North London by from six to three, while the group is also consulting on a reorganisation which will mean a number of staff leaving its Midlands titles before the New Year.
It follows a spate of photographic redundancies across Johnston Press’s regional divisions over recent months and others in some Local World businesses.
The cuts have led the National Union of Journalists to describe 2014 as an “annus horribilis” for photographers.with national organiser Laura Davison warning the cuts could lead to the “extinction of the whole job category .
The North London changes were revealed in a letter written to staff by group editor Tim Jones which has since been made public by the NUJ.
In it, he said the move to cut staff photographers in the capital was owing to “reduced space in our titles, the improvement in the quality and quantity of mobile devices used extensively throughout the department and an increase in the number of pictures submitted to the news desk from external sources.”
The company has also confirmed that two staffers will depart from Newsquest Oxfordshire and Wiltshire – affecting the Swindon Advertiser, Wiltshire Gazette & Herald and Wiltshire Times.
And in the Midlands four photographer jobs, one full-time and three part-time, will be reduced to one full-time equivalent with a new 30-mile patch created between Dudley and Alcester.
The move will affect the daily Worcester News as well as number of weekly titles previously overseen by former Stourbridge Division group editor Paul Walker, who quit his role last week.
Elsewhere it was revealed earlier this month that the chief photographer of the Northern Echo, Richard Doughty, and deputy chief photographer Andy Lamb, had left the company.
In November HTFP reported that York daily The Press was axeing the role of picture editor and reducing the number of staff photographers from four to three.
Two staff photographers at weekly sister titles the Keighley News and Craven Herald, Bob Smith and Steve Garnett, were also made redundant as part of the review.
A spokesman for the NUJ said: “These companies have been using trainee reporters to take pictures without providing them with technical or health and safety training. One Newsquest title is regularly using a nine-year-old boy to provide sports photographs.
“Already mistakes are being made: one reporter asked to take a picture of somebody leaving a court snapped the wrong person.”
Chris Morley, NUJ Northern and Midlands organiser, said: “The all-out assault by newspaper companies against their staff photographers is in danger of wiping out a whole, critical and valuable skillset from the newsroom as we know it.
“One company’s crazy willingness to purge some of its greatest ambassadors to the public is being picked up and copied with indecent speed by another, all greedy for short-term savings at the fag-end of the year.
“In the latest mania, Newsquest has reached new levels of brutality in the supposed season of goodwill.
“It has put livelihoods to the sword in the space of a fortnight, from the first shock staff announcement to the letter telling our members they are getting their P45.”
Both Peter John, group editor of Newsquest’s Worcester Division, and Gary Lawrence, group editor of the Swindon Advertiser, Wiltshire Gazette & Herald and Wiltshire Times, have declined to comment further on the proposals. Tim Jones has yet to respond to requests for a comment.
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Look, anyone can take photos these days – just point your phone and click for stunningly composed and evocative images that add resonance to even the dullest news stories. And if you snap the wrong chap coming out of the magistrates’ court and caption him a fare-dodger, mugger, sex offender or whatever then, hey, we can all be grown up about these things…
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Three Newsquest Snappers at Bolton i believe have just gone!
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It’s not ‘an all-out assault on photographers’. It is, I’m afraid, all part of the technological revolution that has affected every aspect of newspapers. It has happened to editorial admin staff. It has happened to subs. It has happened to editors. And now it is happening to photographers.
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Reduce the quality of photographs by axing professional photographers in favour of submitted pictures taken on iPhones isn’t going to help sell papers. Which of course will lead to poorer quality papers that less people will buy, fewer sales equals less revenue, less revenue equals more redundancies in news rooms until there’s no-one left. But the greedy bosses at Newsquest can’t seem to make the connection between the two but it doesn’t matter to them because they’re alright Jack. A sad time for all Newsquest togs and their families…
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Although newspaper managements are complicit in the decline of professional photography, the internet is basically the main cause. Any local event of note is often followed by a tidal wave of internet pictures made available by local amateurs, of varying quality but some quite good because of advances in idiot-proof digital camera technology. In the same way, local bloggers often now do better write-ups about local events than hard-pressed, often under-trained local journalists. It’s sad to see and, sometimes, I really curse the arrival of the internet but unfortunately we can’t un-invent it.
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Photographers have been known to get a picture of the wrong person outside a court too….
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One Newsquest editor was overheard talking about engaging the services of a local photographic club to replace those that were leaving
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Last time I looked, Newsquest North London’s patch stretched from West Hertfordshire (Watford), through London and into west Essex. How do you cover that with three photographers?
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My local is so desperate it used today a huge and not very good pic of a kid as its splash. But I must say I am beginning to wonder if public really cares. They might have become used to the drop in overall quality in recent years. So mediocre is normal, and bad is OK. I could quote you ten examples from my local but they do not deserve it.
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Snappers on weeklies don’t earn a fortune. Some have to freelance as well to have any standard of living. People sending in pix or reporters taking them don’t realise they are potentially doing someone out of a job. That is, if they haven’t been sacked already.
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Its not photographers that are becoming extinct…its newspapers. As an industry they missed the journey to evolve with the arrival of internet and have failed to catch up. No evolution by the businesses has left them like the dinosaurs. Sad and lingering death of a once proud industry
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Greedy newspaper owners are the problem I’m afraid. It’s not because mobile devices have improved…I have a pair of scissors at home, but that dosen’t make me a hairdresser!!! The stupid owners will reap what they sew when quality and reliability disappear with redundant photographers.Papers are already showing a massive drop in quality. Short sighted owners are oly reducig the quality to the level of Facebook. Facebok is free so they are only creating competition for themselves. FOOLS!!!!!
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You have to look no further than the pages of the Manchester Evening News to see how the quality of the picture coverage has nose-dived since most of its pro-freelancers were given the boot via email. Breaking news stories are covered by a variety of submitted pictures on iPhones and mobiles, and Google has taken over street scenes. A once exceptional paper for its picture coverage is now a regional rag not worth the cost of its cover price or the effort of looking at it free on the Web. Sad days for staff and ex-staffers who worked on a paper they were proud to represent and with a reputation that few could beat. What a great job in demolition its present owners have done!
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Next in the crosshairs: The Scribblers, who are now unofficial subs, tweeters, bloggers and searchers for the images that have to accompany almost every bit of copy.
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Johnson Press’s Bedford Times and Citizen are quite happy to help themselves to my images off websites where I have given charities my photographs in support of their money raising efforts.
Should I cease to be supportive or slap a watermark across the images?
It does hack me off, that are putting very good people on the streets.
Perhaps the new copyright laws now operating in Spain which has caused Google to cease its ‘news’ operation (yesterday’s Indie) could be applied to this type of practise in the UK.
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Johnston Press has done the same thing and it has been patently obvious that those responsible have absolutely no idea what photographers do. They think reporters can do the same with a phone as a professional photographer can do with a state of the art SLR and 400mm lens. We even had a trainer come and tell us how we could get sports pictures: “If you just keep the button pressed it will keep taking pictures.” Oh right, that will get round the fact that it’s getting dark, it’s snowing and the action is at the other end of the pitch, will it?
Our MD even refused to buy a better quality camera to replace the editorial point-and-shoot. It would have cost about the same as the dishwasher he ordered for an office where we can’t even get a half load if we gather every cup in the place!
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Ah the old Johnston Press plan. I stopped caring when I was made redundant as a JP snapper just as the company forked out 15k on a new video production suite in each office. Needless to say the shiny new video camera and edit software were never used, and to this day lie dormant in a drawer. Never used because the reporters and editors looked at it like cavemen looking at a fire. This industry is bonkers.
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Tell me why its more important that a reporter gets a byline and not the snapper…. makes me very angry. Me Me Me yet we add so much to the story.
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