A regional daily picture editor who is also the chief photographic examiner for the NCTJ has lost his job in a company restructure.
The South Wales Evening Post recently scrapped its picture desk with the loss of two photographic roles.
Among the casualties of the change was Steve Phillips, group picture editor for Local World-owned South West Wales Publications which publishes the SWEP and its sister titles the Llanelli Star and Carmarthen Journal.
Steve is due to leave the company at the end of this week after 11 years at the paper and 28 years in journalism.
The changes, which were first announced in December, will mean the loss of one other staff photographer role in addition to Steve’s.
It is understood that the four remaining SWEP staff photographers, together with one photographer covering the two weeklies, will in future report to the newsdesk.
Steve joined the SWEP 11 years ago having previously worked for all three of the other daily titles based in South Wales – the South Wales Argus, the South Wales Echo and the Western Mail.
He has also held the post of chief examiner for the NCTJ’s photography board for the past 11 years and will continue in this role despite his forthcoming redundancy.
Steve told HTFP: “I have really enjoyed my time here and it’s sad to be leaving but I am looking forward to a new challenge working as a freelance and maybe doing a little bit of teaching as well.”
He has set up a website to showcase his photographic work which can be seen at stevephillipsphotography.co.uk
The South Wales Evening Post has declined to comment.
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Don’t need picture editors, sadly.Anything goes in. Some papers even use grainy, out of focus, bady composed sent in images as splash pictures! And there some weeklies in the country serving 100,000 plus populations with no staff snappers of their own and no freelance budgets.
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Is that the sound of nails being hit I can hear? Yep! that’s another one
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If this is the kind of action needed to protect management expense accounts at our place then we’re all in favour. #jolliesnotjournalism
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“No-one from Local World or SWWP has so far responded to requests for a comment”.
Don’t hold your breath, Paul, because nine cases out of ten they won’t bother.
It never ceases to amaze me how media groups clam up when it comes to their own publications.
They never cease to spout about the need for openness in public life, councils, courts, etc.
They always claim to be the eyes and ears of the community. In most cases they are the media monopoly in their circulation areas.
No other industry can have received its basic raw material,in this case news, for free for so long from people such as the police, hospitals, etc etc.
Yet here they are closing newspaper offices that have been open for decades, sacking thousands of staff, outsourcing to the Third World, bringing media consultants in from America.
Circulations plummet, yet I bet you would get more information out of the Kremlin at the height of the Cold War than you would from some of these operators.
I could go on, but I think you get the picture…they’ve nothing to say to all the media workers out there who have a right to information about the profession on the media’s own website.
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So sorry to hear the news about Steve, who is one of the many excellent photographers who have lost their jobs over recent years. I hope that readers protest in their thousands about the frequently awful images that newspapers are now forced to use in place of the pin-sharp, well-composed, eye-catching photographers we had come to take for granted. I, for one, miss the contribution of our wonderful snappers enormously.
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Ha ha! That should say photographs. Bring back our sub-editors too! They can check my copy.
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Good luck Steve. You were an excellent picture editor at the S.W. Argus and I’m sure you’ll make a success of your new challenge.
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Can’t bear to read my old paper. Pictures are so pathetic they make me cringe. No one cares, just get paper on streets and online with minimal cost and quality. Shame.
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What a loss for SWEP. Good luck Steve
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All of you – GET BACK TO WORK NOW. Well, those of you we’ve allowed to actually remain in work, that is.
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Be reasonable everybody……..we’s gotta pay for the re-boot of the Western Morning Blues on Sunday somehow.
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As someone toiling in the midst of all the madness going on around me down here, can I just say these comments on HTFP often feel like the journalistic equivalent of the French Resistance circa 1943 when all hope seemed lost against the onrushing tide of madness. A little extreme? Trying being in the middle of what a small cabal is trying to do to our jobs and our cherished papers down here, unchecked, and you’d feel like I do, I am sure. Keep up the comments, whoever, you are, because you’re keeping me sane.
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Pipe down people! Everything here is FANTASTIC!
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Well, if you’re not happy, you know what you can do!
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Oh dear.
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I have this totally irrational but persistent idea that once this lunacy in the industry ends newspapers will have a revival. All they need to do is survive the worst leadership in the history of the business.
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Keyboard warriors, cowards, and mainly losers on this thread. Get a life!
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John Doe, keep the negative comments coming because that’s what’s keeping you sane. Haha.. Really? Says a lot about you if that’s what keeps you sane.
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How’s Looby Loo, Andy Pandy? Running the place, I’d say….
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Nice to know senior Loco World managers in Wales and Devon take the trouble to keep abreast of debate on HTFP. Wish they paid as much attention to what’s going on in their own newsrooms.
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Steerpike – do I know you? Must have worked together in a previous life. Your comments seem so familiar #multiplepersonalities
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Ha ha “Zena”….nice try on Steerpike, but #barking #wrong #tree
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Think of the extra hours the already stretched newsdesk will have to put in now Steve has gone. Just disgraceful.
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Another nail in the coffin for experienced photo-journalists. I suggest the pen pushers and accountants now protecting their own backs in the newspaper industry realise they are simply biting off the hands that feed them.
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