Plans by regional publisher Johnston Press to axe all staff photographers across its Midlands region have been condemned by the National Union of Journalists.
As revealed by HoldtheFrontPage yesterday, the company’s newspapers in Lincolnshire, Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire will soon be left without any staff photographers after a review of how photographic content is generated.
But the NUJ claims the move is “dangerous” and could lead to “industrial scale theft” of images.
The union is also concerned that already hard-pressed reporters will be made to take photographs and that the overall quality of titles will suffer.
Most of the staff photographers have left under JP’s enhanced voluntary redundancy scheme, although there are also understood to be a single-figure number of compulsory redundancies.
Some of the staff who are leaving are expected to be re-employed by the company on a freelance basis.
General secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “This is a disastrous decision, not just for photographers, but for readers and advertisers of newspapers, who will notice a huge difference in the quality of pictures.
“I hope Johnston Press has alerted its lawyers; dangerous mistakes will be made if a paper’s picture policy is left to the general public.”
Andrew Wiard, chair of the NUJ’s Photographers’ Council added: “The NUJ supports the role of professional image makers in providing images to the media. The fact that many bystanders now have cameras is no guarantee that newsworthy, well-shot, usable images will result, that caption information will be accurate and appropriate, or that the rights of creators of that content and those shown are respected.
“Sacking photographers only makes sense in a world where quality and accuracy count for nothing, where readers are treated with contempt and where the organised theft of other people’s images is going to be carried out on an industrial scale.”
A spokeswoman for Johnston Press told HTFP yesterday: “All photographers will soon be leaving titles within the Midlands region following a review – at local level – of the way photographic content is generated.
“Most photographers have taken an enhanced voluntary redundancy package. A small number of photographic positions were placed at risk and final consultation is underway with those likely to be affected.”
The company has declined to comment further.
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I’m all for embracing technology but not with a blind, suicidal, lemming-like leap.
JP just stagger from crisis to crisis and it’s the staff, the readers and the papers that suffer.
It’s about time they just admitted they don’t want a newspaper empire, they want to go completley digital.
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Just further evidence that the ‘bottom line’ is all that counts for most publishers. A few hundred pounds for an office camera and hacks desperate to keep their jobs will probably provide images acceptable to financially motivated editors in most circumstances.
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Trust the NUJ to stick their oar in now… when it’s too late! For them to give any opinion on this matter when they did nothing at about it in the first place, is an insult to all professional journalists involved and proves that this organisation is spineless, toothless and, like these poor folks, redundant!
If you’re not high-profile (ie BBC), or an easy win, the NUJ don’t want to know.
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I agree outofit. There appears to be a far too rapid rush to digital from JP, at the expense of the quality of the print offering. Advertising revenues from print still far outweigh those from digital, even with the reduced quality. Who will read content online if the standing of the print version is so diminished and eventually gone? Potential online readers probably wouldn’t be aware half the sites exist.
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Where was the NUJ when this all came about last year? Come on Michelle and Andrew, what did you do to try and stop these hard-working and treated-like-crap staffers from getting the boot?
Awaiting reply…
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Trust someone to jump into a thread on HTFP with an ill-informed attack on the NUJ. The union has been incredibly active in the company for years – here’s just a sample of the work: http://www.nuj.org.uk/tags/johnston+press/ Alas, the NUJ’s ability to take effective action in JP has been hamstrung by the legal fiction that JP doesn’t employ any journalists – preventing the union from taking company-wide action due to the UK’s anti-trade union laws (after an injunction in 2010 http://www.nuj.org.uk/news/journalists-at-johnston-press-to-vote-again-on-strike-action/ ).
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I wonder what would happen if all the photographers who were made redundant in the Midlands made a pact NOT to submit any of their photos to the JP papers they were employed by? Or agreed on an acceptable level of payment, rather than having to jostle for peanuts thrown by their former paymasters?
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They’d force the reporters to take the pics Scribbler. And when I say ‘force’, I mean just make it a part of your job, like they did headline writing, proofreading (your own) copy, writing and editing web copy etc etc
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If they are rushing to digital, then high-quality photography is even more vital than ever. A great set of photos works wonders in making an online story leap out at you, whatever format – and a crap one looks even worse on-screen. Bewildering!
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Firstly, I have to say that professional press photography is more important now, then ever, in our visually literate society.
Secondly, reporters may have become ‘multi-skilled’ and I am sure most can work out which button to press on their phone (to get a sub-standard image). But don’t forget, that to get a picture, you have to be there. How many reporters can spare that sort of time away from their desks, alongside all the other tasks?
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This story forgets Cambridgshire, Suffolk and Norfolk which are also losing all their snappers. I have brought in many front page stories and features to the paper over the years as we are the ‘face’ of our papers. We are the ones that the Police, Paramedics, Firefighters, Road Sweepers etc etc get to know and trust. We are the ones they tip off. We also get given all the feedback by the people we photograph everyday about how much they hate the redesign and if I had a pound for everytime I’ve been told ”I stopped buying it when they changed the design and put the price up”! I wouldn’t need the redundancy money. I have shed blood sweat and tears (literally on all counts) for ‘my’ paper over more than 10 years, working long hours without overtime, without breaks and mostly without complaint and now some bloke from google thinks newspapers don’t need Professional Photographers. Like the rest he will do his damage and leave.
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