As of Monday 18th May I will be moving the industry news section of the blog (Awards/grantsEquipmentEventsGallery/slideshowGeneralIssuesPhoto MA NewsPhotojournalismwork) to my twitter feed. Most of the stories I have been posting are simply links to existing stories on the web, and I can provide these links much more efficiently using twitter. The MA News will continue to be blogged at this site, as well as through the twitter feed.
To follow me on Twitter - go to www.twitter.com, click on find people and type "djclark". If you have a twitter account (its free and I recommend you do this) you can "follow" me. There are numerous pieces of free software to help you integrate the twitter feed with your web browser and phone.
The continuing belief by some publishing execs that, eventually, some mythical e-reader standard will rescue the business is misguided. In a quest for reach, newspapers have spent the last 10 years divorcing their bits from the shackles of atoms. Now that their intrinsic content is freely available via any number of outlets, there’s no easy way to recoup any money by once again locking their text behind the tyranny of tangible form.
This longing for an “iPod moment”, replicating the boost Apple’s iTunes Store gave to record labels, is understandable from dyed-in-the-wool print veterans, for whom e-readers comfortably reimagine the humble book, magazine, even newsprint. But the faith is retrograde - Amazon’s Kindle is all well and good, but do consumers really want to carry yet another gadget that does only one job, when mobile phones, netbooks and a dozen yet-to-materialise devices offer the same content and more for free? ...more
according to a recent study by the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. It found that 22 percent of Internet users have canceled a print subscription because they could get the same product online....more
Newspapers "not only will go away but they should go away," he said, adding that today's talk would "cap" his statements and then he would "never speak of the death of newspapers again."...more
On Wednesday, Amazon introduced a larger version of the Kindle, pitching it as a new way for people to read textbooks, newspapers and documents. It also offered limited information about new partnerships that are intended to put Kindles in the hands of more university students and newspaper readers. ...more
Zuckerman even has a solution for the faltering newspaper industry. "Bingo!" he told us. "Just make bingo legal on our websites." Bingo? we asked hesitantly, thinking for a moment that the billionaire was showing his age after all. "Yes!" he answered. "The newspapers in England are supported almost exclusively by the profitability of running bingo games on their websites. It attracts an enormous audience. ...more
The NY Times has been the most aggressive of all the publishers searching for a solution to the ailing print business. It's common to see a Times product on a new communications device, from the first iPhone to the first Kindle. Later this month, the paper is supposedly coming out with a new Times Reader — the section fronts and archived crossword puzzles free, the rest by subscription — available as an Adobe Air application. It would hardly be surprising then to learn that the newspaper has been quietly working with Amazon to create an even more compelling Kindle-based product that takes advantage of a larger display screen. ...more
Now, The Daily Beast has learned, Murdoch’s News Corp. has set up a global team, based in New York, London, and Sydney, to create a system for charging for online content in an environment where consumers have come to expect to get it for free. According to a knowledgeable source, the team is said to be “looking at hardware” to deliver the content in a “user-friendly way”—a prospect that will surely catch the attention of the developers of Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader. ...more
Some people are calling it a lifeline for newspapers and magazines. Amazon is expected to announce it’s larger screen Kindle today designed especially for these larger publications...more
David Hunke said some paid online content could begin to appear: "there is paid digital content in some areas in the future for us and everyone else," Hunke said. "There will always be an element of free access to some level of news and information." He added, "we are all racing to give everything away for free and everyone is seeing the pricing model in digital begin to decline."...more
"Simply put, if cable and satellite broadcasting, as well as the internet, had come along first, newspapers as we know them probably would never have existed." ...more
The web is buzzing about The Washingtonian magazine's choice to put a paparazzi photo of a buff and shirtless President Obama on the cover of its May issue.
“Visitors to video sites now exceeds users of Web-based e-mail, according to a report released today by The Nielsen Company…Nielsen released a report which tracks Web use in the U.S. since 2003…
The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period.
In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent.” beet.tv ...more
NEWSPAPER advertising, already in its worst slump since the Depression, suffered by far the sharpest drop in generations during the first quarter of 2009, down 30 percent for some papers, industry executives and analysts say. ...more
Marriott, the hotel group, announced on Monday that it no longer will automatically deliver newspapers to guests.
Marriott said each newspaper represents emissions of a half pound of carbon dioxide. It said the new policy should reduce newspaper distribution by about 50,000 newspapers every day or by about 18 million newspapers every year.
That would reduce carbon emissions by 10,350 tons each year. ...more
Journalism schools are like foot-binding. They force you into a style that a bunch of dinosaurs all agreed was acceptable a zillion years ago. So in an age of blogging, you have no voice. In fact, if I were in J-school now, I’d have my knuckles rapped for using the rhetorical “you” in those last two sentences. ...more
Here's how it works: A journalist post his or her project on the site, with a dollar amount that is needed to set the wheels in motion. Donors then pledge small amounts by credit card towards the goal (though the cards aren't charged for until after the total needed has been reached). Projects can be initiated for as little as $450, though in-depth stories can cost thousands of dollars. Most of this money is paid to the reporter, with smaller amounts going to the editor and fact-checker. To keep donors from having undue influence on the work that gets produced, no one can support more than 20% of any individual story. ...more
Suggestions are pouring in -- sometimes with checks attached -- that newspapers should become nonprofit foundations, or that foundations should supply investigative teams and foreign bureaus and other expensive accessories. Or that limits should be placed on the nefarious practice of "aggregation" -- Web sites lifting the news, via links, from other sites. Or that customers should be forced, somehow, to pay. ...more
In a letter to contributors, Brian J Miller, CEO, wrote "WpN is another victim of the severe economic downturn, along with most of our clients and many of you. Our assignment revenue has dropped dramatically in the last five months and it simply does not make financial sense to continue supporting the losses we are sustaining with no improvement in sight. " ...more
The scene from the movie Titanic where the musicians continue to play (info here) as the ship is sinking, is, to me, evidence of the musicians' head-in-the-sand (pardon the soon-to-be-pun) mentality they exhibited.
Just as the water breached the hull, filling decks, trapping passengers unaware, so too, is the sinking hulk of Getty Images doomed to sink into the history books as the largest photo agency in the world, sunk by the iceberg microstock. ...more
More than half of the top 30 newspaper Web sites gained double-digit percentages of visitors in February, according to new data from Nielsen Online.
The number of unique visitors grew 36% year-over-year to 8.4 million at the Los Angeles Times.
USAToday.com said in a release that its 25% increase of readers in February was due to the Tech section of the site and popular stories. Visitors to the Tech section rose 100% to 1.9 million, according to USA Today. It also cites its coverage of the economic stimulus package, the Octuplet mom and Rihanna for drawing in readers....more
The American financial and auto industries aren't the only ones falling apart before the nation's eyes. "Imagine someone about to begin physical therapy following a stroke [and] suddenly contracting a debilitating secondary illness," researchers at the Project for Excellence in Journalism write about the news media's long-overdue embrace of the Internet in 2008, just as a global recession began wreaking havoc on the industry's biggest advertisers. ...more
SEATTLE — The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will produce its last printed edition on Tuesday and become an Internet-only news source, the Hearst Corporation said on Monday, making it by far the largest American newspaper to take that leap. ...more
Meanwhile ex-Rocky Mountain News staffers plan news Web site ...more
As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available. ...more
Well, since digital journalism became the single ray of hope on an otherwise dark media horizon, and Columbia’s vaunted ability to train students as print reporters began to appear obsolete. And so the school is trying to change. Fast. ...more
Nick Bilton, an editor in the New York Times research and development lab, doesn't think much of newspaper. In fact, he doesn't even get the Sunday paper delivered to his house.
Thankfully for Bilton and his employer, he's bullish on news. It's just the paper he hates. ...more
A survey of more than 1,000 photographers, press agencies and picture libraries for the British Photographic Council found that 93% of photographers have come under pressure to hand over greater rights to clients for no increase in the fee, with 76% saying that their income has fallen as a result....more
The world's leading online social-networking service on Wednesday unveiled a redesign that adds Twitter-like real-time chatter, better filtering of incoming information, and a platform for reaching mass audiences....more
Digital readers will save writers and publishing, even if they destroy the book business.
Amazon announced the second iteration of its Kindle electronic reading device last month. The next day, HarperCollins announced that it would close its Collins division to substantially reduce head count and limit the number of books it acquires to publish. It was almost as if Harper was acting out a ritual dismemberment upon hearing the news. ...more
NEW YORK The New York Times is joining the growing world of local "citizen journalism" with two Web sites launching Monday focused on five specific communities in New Jersey and Brooklyn, N.Y.
"The Local" will appear on the Times' Web pages with sites dedicated to three communities in New Jersey -- Maplewood, South Orange and Millburn -- and two Brooklyn neighborhoods, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill.
Most of the contributions will come from local residents, with a Times staffer overseeing each site. ...more
"If you don't have people out working as full-time reporters, there's this category of information that's not going to appear magically out of nowhere," said Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University's School of Journalism, who argues that papers made a mistake by giving away their wares online. "In a world where all content is free, original newsgathering doesn't happen. We really need to face up to the fact that this is going to be lost."...more
So my predictions for the future? More "name" photographers will be cashing in their reputations to teach "masterclasses" to wealthy orthodontists.
So-called "principled" photographers will be cozying up to Russian oligarchs and third-world billionaires. None of us will be saying "no" to wedding photography or lucrative teaching posts which sell to young students the rarely-realized dream that they’ll one day have jobs as photographers.
My advice? Get re-skilled. Keep your photographic aspirations but try to get a trade like film editing, web-design or accounting.
Soon we’ll all be amateur photographers with real money-making jobs on the side that we don’t tell our colleagues about. We need to get over the snobbery attached to that.
And we have to be tougher in our demands. Magazines online will be built by re-skilled photography lovers around business plans that don’t include paying wages to the photographers they ask to write.
They pay salaries to each other, they pay the man who comes to fix the photocopier, but the "name" photographers they ask to contribute six hundred words get nothing. With business models like that, how can we survive?" ...more
Browsing the Web sites of two major daily newspapers is about to start costing: After posting substantial losses, both Newsday and the San Francisco Chronicle have announced plans to begin charging readers for online content.
As revenues continue their precipitous decline, we can expect more newpapers to consider adopting online pay models. Back in October, the Christian Science Monitor announced it would shift to a "Web-based strategy" that includes charging subscription fees for a daily PDF edition. Other outlets charging for online content have yielded mixed results: The LA Times began charging for online access to its "Calendar" arts section in 2003, but eliminated the pay wall in 2005 after seeing a sharp drop in traffic to its Web site. Around that time, the New York Times tried putting its opinion columnists behind a pay wall with the 2005 implementation of its "TimesSelect" program, but scrapped the subscription program two years later, saying "projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising."...more
Today’s collapse of the Rocky Mountain News has prompted the usual hysterics and hand-wringing over the death of print—but people need to get over the notion that quality news only comes on paper.
Forget the newspaper industry. Let’s launch the News Industry. Say hello to News Inc. Let’s do what every industry does: Identify consumer demand and meet it.The good news is that consumers are just learning all the new ways they can get news and are still figuring out what works best for them. There is still time for those of us in the news industry to work with them and find out at the same time. ...more
Issue 46 of the China Review looks at China's dealings with Africa and how this has recently been portrayed in the Western media. It can now be downloaded from the Great Britain-China Centre website.
Highlighes include: Turning a China threat into a China Opportunity - Raphie Kaplinsky on the potential for expansion of the China-Africa connnection Chinese Entrepreneurs in Africa's Informal Economies - Aleksandra Gadzala examines the success of small scale Chinese entrepreneurs in Africa Telling Stories - British Broadsheets on China, Africa and the West - Emma Mawdsley assesses broadsheet coverage of China-Africa relations A Trip Down Memory Lane - excerpts from Elizabeth Watson's book documenting conversations with Shanghai's older generation Improving China's Public Finance Management - read about how GBCC is breaking new ground Treasures from Shanghai - the British Museum's new exhibition is well worth a visit
She is the world's most famous celebrity photographer, whose portfolio contains some of the most iconic images of the past 30 years, not least the glamorous pictures of Michelle Obama on the latest cover of Vogue. As such Annie Leibovitz is hardly the kind of person you would normally associate with going to a pawn-broker....more
Forget the lingering hopes that online advertising would remain a beacon of stability in this economy. In recent weeks major Web publishers, from Yahoo! (YHOO) to New York Times Co. (NYT) , have reported that revenues from their mainstay pictorial display ads are down. The poor economy isn't their only problem either. It's simply speeding up a shift in online advertising that's challenging the Net's leading destinations like never before....more
Last spring Anthony Suau pleaded with Time magazine – where he's been a contract photographer for 20 years – to publish his photo essay on the economic crisis in Cleveland, Ohio.
"When I arrived there I was in shock," Suau recalls. "There was almost not a single street in Cleveland that didn't have a house that was boarded up because of a foreclosure." He compared the scene to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Time decided not to print the story, and Suau's pictures ran only on Time.com, where it drew little attention in the U.S. – until today, when one of Suau's Cleveland pictures won the World Press Photo of the Year award....more
Out of all the imperfect scenarios available, the least imperfect version looks to me like this: A bunch of news organizations get together, create a site walled off from the prying Web-crawlers of Google (and the momentary affections of the casual Web surfer), charge subscription fees, and split these fees and any ad revenue....more
When Arthur Sulzberger Jr. refused to talk to his own reporter about the financial condition of the New York Times Co., it was the latest sign of an industry in deep trouble.
After all, the Times is not only the nation's top-selling metropolitan daily but also boasts the top newspaper Web site, averaging 19.5 million unique visitors each month. Its struggles have sparked a passionate debate about how to wring more cash from the online world where the Times, like most newspapers, gives away its wares for free....more
NEWSWEEK staffers have yet to simmer down after last week's stunning announcement that it was going to radically downsize its circulation, first to 1.9 million by July, and then ultimately to 1.2 million next year. ...more
Online microblogging services like Twitter, a popular social media tool for many media companies and television networks, are used by 11% of online Americans, according to a research report conducted by Pew Internet & American Life Project in December and released today. That’s up from 9% of online Americans using the service in November. ...more
NYT editor Bill Keller directly addressed questions about the paper's business model today—specifically, about charging for online news, and the possibility of the paper going non-profit. He'll have to decide sooner than he'd like....more
Meanwhile Alun Mutter makes the point that most ad revenue for Newspapers comes from selling on from print ads....more
The latest step in electronic newspapers was announced this week with Amazon offering automatic newspaper delivery to their new Kindle device. Newspaper electronic versions are delivered to the device through wireless and 3G networks so are ready in the morning when you wake....more
A new rule, announced late last year, stipulates that the sites must produce original work and "publish" at least weekly. They also cannot be connected to magazines or broadcast outlets...more
Thousands upon thousands of newspaper journalists have lost their jobs in recent years in endless rounds of layoffs and buyouts. What happens in the next act? ...more Paper cuts website monitors the job cuts in the newspaper industry in the USA ...more
[This is a cross posting with David Campbell's personal web site and blog, now available at www.david-campbell.org, with content and postings on photography, multimedia and politics.]
The media landscape is changing radically. When The Guardian (rightly) wins a Broadcast News award for its July 2008 video on Zimbabwe’s rigged election – which was posted on the newspapers web site before being shown on BBC television – then we have proof that the barriers between print, on-line and television are being blurred by multimedia.
This convergence is not without its problems. The mainstream media is using ‘clickstream’ data on what drives digital consumers to their site in a way that could see more of the same superficial journalism in more outlets.
"Getty Images has started recruiting Flickr users as it prepares for the launch of its new collection of images sourced from the social networking website." There appears to be no way of asking for Getty to look at your work for potential representation, you just post to Flickr and hope they see you. ...more
However the deal is not as sweet as it looks as although the deal suggests a standard deal to all photographers (30% of the price), Getty looks to be looking for ways to boost its microstock, which may mean just 20p an image sold (by my calculation). There are also a number of copy right issues ...more
"Could newspapers and local broadcasters begin seeking philanthropic support from the civic foundations and private donors that are starting to bankroll news non-profits? It appears entirely likely. With for-profit media watching their news-gathering resources dwindle, some editors say they're open to the idea of seeking help from donors." ...more
"There are only a few things I am sure of in the world of journalism, but this is one of them: In 2009, journalists will be capturing more video and working alone more often. This is already happening in local TV, in the newspaper and online worlds, and as you are about to see, even CNN's photojournalists are out there producing entire shows by themselves." ...more
The next meeting of the World Newspaper Congress will meet in Hyderbad, India between March 22 to 25 to focus on the growth of Multi Media in their sector. More than 2,000 editors, CEOS and others from the publishing industry are expected to attend to discuss the current threats to the industry.
"Images of kids playing video games were created by Robbie Cooper, a British photographer who employed a Red camera — a very-high-resolution video camera — and then took stills from the footage. Cooper, who says he was inspired by the camera technique that Errol Morris used to interview people in his documentaries, arranged his equipment so that the players were actually looking at a reflection of the game on a small pane of glass. He placed the camera behind the reflection so that it could look directly into their faces as they played. Cooper and his collaborators, Andrew Wiggins and Charly Smith, videotaped children in England and in New York."...more
Fresh speculation was sparked about the health of North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il, amid suggestions that an image of Mr Kim was doctored....more
Photograph by award winning portrait photographer Platon of a woman grieving at a grave of her Muslim American Soldier son killed in Iraq is sited by Powell as a reason for him switching sides to support democrat candidate (and now President to be) Barak Obama. The endorsement demonstrates the power of the portrait to effect change? ...more
It’s been an especially rotten few days for people who type on deadline. On Tuesday, The Christian Science Monitor announced that, after a century, it would cease publishing a weekday paper. Time Inc., the Olympian home of Time magazine, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, announced that it was cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing its staff. And Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, compounded the grimness by announcing it was laying off 10 percent of its work force — up to 3,000 people.
Clearly, the sky is falling. The question now is how many people will be left to cover it. ...more
Working with Oxfam GB fashion photogrpaher Rankin goes to a refugee camp in Congo to shoot portraits. He talks on the BBC about the experience ....more
The economic crisis that has frozen credit, toppled banks and sent consumer confidence plummeting worldwide is about to wreak its havoc on the online-video investment sector. That’s the conclusion of venture capitalists and other experts who are betting the flow of venture money into online video is about to dry up. ...more
Runner's World editor-in-chief and current American Society of Magazine Editors president David Willey offered a positive view of the future in his address to the American Magazine Conference Tuesday morning. "I don't think print is dead or even dying," the editor said ...more
This excellent montage demonstrates how the new image economy can lead to multiple duplication of images. ..more with comment on the Guardian at ...more
What Matters—an audacious undertaking by best-selling editor and author David Elliot Cohen—challenges us to consider how socially conscious photography can spark public discourse, spur reform, and shift the way we think. For 150 years, photographs have not only documented human events, but also changed their course—from Jacob Riis’s exposé of brutal New York tenements to Lewis Hine’s child labor investigations to snapshots of torture at Abu Ghraib prison. In this vein, What Matters presents eighteen powerful stories by this generation’s foremost photojournalists. These stories cover essential issues confronting us and our planet: from climate change and environmental degradation to global jihad, AIDS, and genocide in Darfur to the consequences of the Iraq war, oil addiction, and the inequitable distribution of global wealth. The pictures in What Matters are personal and specific, but still convey universal concepts. These images are rendered even more compelling by trenchant commentary. Cohen asked the foremost writers, thinkers, and experts in their fields to elucidate issues raised by the photographs.
"The camera never lies. But photographers can and do A stunning new twist in the story of Capa's iconic war image shows that authenticity is more than just an artistic criterion." ...more
Every year the Photo MA programme in Dalian, China invites experts from around the world to discuss a key issue relating to photojournalism. The Future Of Photojournalism? (The Multimedia Challenge) was held July 2nd 2008 with the following guests,
Chair: Professor David Campbell (Durham University) Panelists: Dan Chung (The Guardian), Dirck Halstead (The Digital Journalist), Brian Storm (Media Storm)
A higher resolution version of the video plus an ipod downloadable version and free publicity pictures are available ...HERE
'NGOs are increasingly responsible for international news reporting as media organisations shut down their foreign bureaux, according to a TV journalist-turned-academic.
Charlie Beckett, director of Polis, part of the journalism and society department at the London School of Economics, said dwindling investment in news reporting had left media companies increasingly reliant on NGOs for material'. ...more
"My business card will say filmmaker, but photojournalism is what I do," says Leeson, who joined The Dallas Morning News in 1984. One of the pioneers of video in the newspaper business Leeson believes that long term serious documentary projects sliced up into short videos for the newspaper sites is the way forward if serious photojournalism is going to survive. ...more
"After months of anticipation, Esquire unveiled its 75th anniversary issue — complete with E Ink technology on the cover — this morning at Borders in Columbus Circle. In a cutout on the front, the words "The 21st Century Begins Now" blink in various configuration." ...more
Jehad Nga showed his work and spoke with BBC Africa correspondent Rob Walker Friday evening (5 September, 730pm) as part of a series of conversations about Somalia at the Frontline Club. The talk can be viewed HERE ... (62 minutes).
"Four media workers have been held hostage by an unknown group roughly 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of Mogadishu. Freelance journalists Amanda Lindhout, Nigel Brennan, and Abdifatah Mohamed Elmi, along with driver Mahad Clise, were returning from interviews with Somali refugees at Celasha Biyaha when they were kidnapped along the Afgoye-Mogadishu road. The Australian Federal Police and Australia and Canadian diplomats are working with the Somali government to help with hostage release efforts". ...more
At the Brain Storm workshop in Dalian, July 2008, Storm told Photo MA students he was hoping to start covering major events with Media Storm. The Democratic convention is the first MM of its kind and can be viewed online HERE
"Has our increasingly paranoid society declared war on the humble 'weekend snapper'?
An amateur photographer is chased by the police after taking pictures on the seafront; another man is frogmarched away when using his camera in a town centre. Since when did carrying a camera in public provoke so much suspicion and hostility? Sam Delaney reports. Illustration by Ulla Puggaar."...more
Interview with Mr Parr, who looking at his recent work seems to be doing his best work since the 80s at the mo and doing interesting things in magazines. Call it a brief respite from Multimedia... :) A lot of it is fairly obvious (like shooting your own ideas then pitching them, being proactive etc) but I like his idea of dressing documentary up as entertainment to widen it's readership. Love him or hate him he remains one of the most successful documentary photographers of all time. ..more
"An Early Day Motion has been tabled by an MP fighting to protect the rights of photographers.
Former journalist Austin Mitchell, Labour member for Great Grimsby, put forward the motion entitled 'Photography in Public Areas', calling for support for snapping away in public. He has so far been backed with 107 signatures.
In it, he calls on the House to "deplore the apparent rise in the number of reported incidents in which the police, police community support officers or wardens attempt to stop street photography""...more
"Journalists are having trouble going about their work in advance of the Beijing Olympics. Several reporters, photographers and TV camera operators have suffered harassment, from both police and citizens."...more
"If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers." ...more
Brian Storm (Media Storm), Dan Chung (The Guardian), Dirck Halstead (Digital Journalist) and David Campbell (Durham Advanced Centre for Photography) all met in Dalian, China for a four day workshop/seminar with Photo MA students to discuss multimedia visual journalism as a future model for photojournalists. The workshop finished with a seminar debate (pictured right) which was recorded and will be available from this site soon.
