The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and the
American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) Urge Corporate News Media Organizations to Improve and Expand News Coverage

The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) are keenly aware that newsrooms in the United States have experienced dramatic cutbacks during the past decade, with many news organizations reducing the size, frequency and breadth of their coverage. These cutbacks have eroded the quality of information available to American citizens, while contributing to an overall distrust of the news media.

Candidates in the 2012 election campaign cycle reportedly raised and spent an unprecedented $6 billion. The campaigns expended a large portion of this sum to advertise on television and radio as well as in newspapers and news magazines. The Washington Post reports that the presidential campaigns, alone, spent more than $1billion – half or more of their total campaign dollars – on such advertising.

In order to accommodate this huge influx of advertising, many media outlets actually reduced their available news bloc to make room for more political advertising.

Based upon these facts and observations the NPPA & ASMP urge corporate news media organizations to re-invest a substantial portion of their profits into the communities they serve by improving and expanding local news coverage so as to achieve the highest standards in journalism and bolster public trust and respect.

Why? The direct but less revealing answer is because Greg Smith, one of the brightest minds in the organization, proposed a resolution calling for such a statement. The resolution was discussed, modified and passed by the Board in early January.

That’s the short answer. The longer more revealing answer is because the NPPA, long known for educating photographers and running contests, is continuing to become a louder voice for visual journalists. Part of that evolution, as described by now Past President Sean Elliot at the same January meeting, is that the NPPA should be the loud voice leading the charge, not the meek voice saying, quietly, yes, we agree with whatever another group says.

So, here it is. A shout, saying we, the photographers and editors and MMJs and educators and students and others, would like to be able to do our jobs better so the communities we live in will be better because those communities are better informed.

We aren’t demanding. We aren’t saying the companies we work for shouldn’t keep the money they make.

We’re saying some companies, in this election cycle, got a lot more money than they expected to get and we would like those companies to take some of that money, and $6,000,000,000 is a whole lot of money, and put it to work where we work and live.

Mike Borland

Over the weekend I spotted a very entertaining photo/commentary on Facebook depicting “what photojournalists do”. If you haven’t seen it I’m sure you will. It easily captures to no small degree the experience of many of us in the field of visual journalism. I “shared” it on my presidential Facebook fan page, because isn’t that what we all do when we see something we like on the web?

The problem, as pointed-out to me this morning, is that the photographer who created this humorous image is not the owner of the copyright for the four images used. She even admits in comments accompanying that she plucked them off Google and does not know how to credit them. Therein lies the rub.

I am not copyright holder to any of the images, but I am President of a national association that fights tooth and nail on the issues of copyright protections for visual journalists. I should not be holding-up a blatant act of copyright infringement in any positive light, no matter how funny I might find the commentary to be?

These four-photo commentaries are flooding the web as we speak. Every occupation from politician, accountant, and athlete to photojournalist is the subject. They are going viral. The one in question here has had 400 “shares” so far on Facebook. The version for “journalist” has nearly 1,200 “shares” and over 1,800 “likes”.

Photographers are losing money every day over having their images pirated on the internet. The NPPA is part of a coalition of organizations working with the U.S. Copyright office on these issues. As a group we need to learn the underlying issues and keep them in the forefront of our minds. If this means calling-out a colleague who has, perhaps innocently, violated copyright law and contributed to the overall societal disrespect for our intellectual property rights, then we must do that.

My apologies in advance if anyone is embarrassed by my comments here. I am embarrassed by my own actions and hope to use this as a teachable moment for us all.

It’s a conversation I’ve had countless times in the years I’ve been involved in the NPPA leadership, I imagine it’s a conversation I’ll have at least as many before I’m done.

The problem I face is that far too often the two of us in the conversation are coming from completely different sets of expectations, making it nearly impossible for me to make the case for renewal in the way that will work.

I have to admit, from the start, that I do not see NPPA membership the way I see a utility bill. I don’t get a daily service from my membership for which I can break down the dues cost into an easily quantifiable measure.

To me NPPA membership is more like … well, maybe my AAA membership, where I know it’s there if I need it, but I may pay the whole year and never get a tow. Or maybe it’s like the money I put in the collection plate at church? The reward is not here in this life? Okay, that may be a bit extreme. At $110 dues are not even close to a tithe. Heck, I like to point out that dues are about one less trip to Starbucks a week. That is not a daunting number.

Which really brings us all back to what we get for that membership? Right now, maybe in this economy, or maybe it’s the overall state of journalism, not enough people who are working in the field are seeing the value in those dues.

And yet I’ll make the case as often as anyone will let me, that being a member of the NPPA is about so much more than what you get for your dues.

If you are like me, passionate about visual journalism, if it’s so much more than a job, If it’s your calling, if you cannot imagine doing anything else, even though it’s not ever going to make you rich, If you’ll find a way to do journalism even if you end up finding other ways to pay the mortgage each month, Then being a member of the NPPA is about being part of that community.

There are countless blogs, web sites and forums where visual journalists gather in reasonable numbers. I’m a member of more than a few of them myself, but in the end there is only one organization that has the historical mission, the traditional connections and the reach to draw all of us engaged in the role of visual journalist together under one tent in solidarity.

When the chips are down (and they’ve been pretty far down of late) I believe we all need to pull together. If enough of us do it in one place, give that one place both some financial support as well as some of our time and energy, The NPPA can do even more than it does now.

But we all need to get past the thought that paying dues to the NPPA is about buying something. Because what it’s really about is buying in to a greater community.

Stop wondering what the NPPA is about and join the team and help shape that community. The NPPA may be over 60-years old, and we may have a tradition of changing only slowly, but that does not mean that the NPPA cannot be more than it is now and can be more of what you may need it to be. But that will never happen if you choose to wonder from the outside and leave the rest of us to explain to the next generation why we need to stand together in support of this profession, this calling, that we love.

Word out of Augusta, Georgia that Chronicle Director of Photography John Curry has fallen victim to the budget ax comes as visual journalism can ill afford to lose yet another photo editor.

As more and more papers make deep cuts into the skilled, talented, dedicated (how many positive adjectives do you need?) journalists who produce the content that is journalism I think it’s important to take note of the importance of the visuals editor, the picture editor, the photo manager, director of photography and his/her role in the field.

Visual Journalists need their editors just as reporters and correspondents need theirs. The process of editing photos and stories may be different, but the need is no less for journalism to work.

Photographers, just like writers, become invested by the act of newsgathering in their work. It is the role of photo editors to shepherd work through the publication process. Sometimes it is helping to select the right photos to go with a story and sometimes it is helping to get the less literal photos into the report to enhance the storytelling. Some photo editors fulfill the role of mentor, helping a visual journalist to navigate their way through daily assignments and long-term projects. Sometimes the photo editor’s job is to be the go-between for visual and textual departments within a publication. Some photo editors bridge what can be a daunting divide with grace and aplomb.

In the end, regardless of their skill, talent or critical success, the importance of the visuals editor is being devalued steadily.

The loss of newsroom jobs of all sorts is cause for great alarm. As newsrooms shrink publishers become increasingly willing to rely on the general public to supply the words and images in the news report.

A dangerous precipice awaits democracy as journalism, independent and ethical reporting, continue to take hits. The fourth estate is being slowly eroded into a machine that regurgitates anything it is fed with no conscious thought to news value, ethics or factual substance. The death of a thousand cuts is becoming painfully real in newsrooms from coast to coast.

The shortsightedness of this overall trend is all the more painful when you consider how cavalierly photo editors are removed from the picture.

The NPPA was founded in part to fight for the respect that “news photographers” deserved. Here we are 65-years later and the excuse of maintaining profit margins is being used to erode the strong inroads we have made in establishing the equal role of the visuals editor in the news gathering team.

But when it comes time to make cuts it seems that all the value the visuals editor brings to the newsroom goes out the window. And with it goes the vital role in shaping the visual report. The lesson is not one we should be learning the hard way. We should know intuitively that when you remove the person from the equation who facilitates, communicates, mentors and coaches that the report will suffer.

The talent of the individual visual journalists may still shine at times, but it will be at those other times; when they are most needed, when the chips are down, when the staff is overwhelmed or just plain burned-out, that the visuals editor is going to be most missed and the readers will be most ill served by the loss.

Of course I have to thank Facebook for the privilege of being regularly privy to Burnett’s musings. Because without it I might not remember to check his blog as often as it merits among the millions of other sources of inspiration that float in the ether.

Burnett’s blog is a lament on how the digital age has left we practitioners of visual journalism scattered and socially fragmented across the landscape.

And he’s right. He speaks of the Golden Age of photojournalism, a period I am just old enough to have had a fleeting glimpse before it began to disappear rapidly into the rear-view mirror.

I remember when deadlines were at 9 or 10 at night, and when I could finish shooting an assignment, and if I didn’t have another one right away (granted that was rare in the world of small newspapers, but it did happen) I could stop, chew the proverbial (or real) fat with a group of colleagues.

Or, even if deadlines made it necessary at the end of an assignment to beat feet home to the office and the Wing-Lynch, there was probably still time during to at least say “hey, how you doing?”, maybe even exchange a few more pleasantries.

But those days are oh-so-over. I was there this very week. Republican Linda McMahon announced her second bid in as many years for the U.S. Senate. The crowd there was large as news events go in Connecticut these days. Newspaper, TV, wire and web photojournalists. And other than a quick nod here and there, we were all too busy to connect. It’s not just the immediate deadline, it’s the volume of content most of us had to produce in a limited amount of time. In addition to a photo or two for our printed edition, I had to work hard to get enough photos to create a photo gallery on our web site. Oh, and I had to set-up a video camera to record the announcement, also to be posted to our web site.

Given those demands it’s no wonder none of us had time to connect in person. And so we rely on the silicon networks in an attempt to make those connections and feel like we are all still part of one big, happy group of visual journalists.

It is, sadly, of no comparison and leaves me, and I suspect many of you, vaguely dissatisfied.

But still we slog forward. We complete our day’s work. We download, edit, upload, file, caption, render, blog, tweet and whatever else we need to do and then just hope we can keep our cynicism in check long enough to post pleasant, witty and insightful comments on our friends’ facebook pages before we head off to bed to get some rest to do it all again tomorrow.

See you all in the trenches.