Photojournalism Is Dead. Long live Photojournalism!

It’s ironic in a way that the rise of the Internet, a medium so perfect for photojournalism, is in fact putting professional photojournalists out of business in large numbers. How can that be? In short, there’s two factors:

1. More photographers out there with easy access to market.
2. More media work ending up online for free.

In short, less revenue shared by more people!

It’s both exciting and frightening to watch! On the one hand, there’s more stunning photos being taken, of more subjects, by more talented photographers than ever before. In a few moments it can be put online and made available for the whole world to watch. And by the prevailing norms, it’s all available for free to watch! Whether it’s news coming out of one of the world’s hotspots or a long reportage from the height of the Himalayas or the depth of the Amazon jungle, we expect to see it for free.

On the other hand though, it is frightening to think about. Professional photojournalists risking their lives, or less dramatic, just putting in countless of hours to produce their stunning imagery and incurring expenses doing so. Going on long journeys and expeditions, carrying heavy equipment and doing all their work. And it just ends up for free on the Internet! Sometimes the photojournalist has been paid, but not always. But there’s no way around it. As a photojournalist, presenting your work online, for free, is a must if you want to get it to market. This opens up for image theft which is illegal but widespread. And often times, quality photojournalism is even drowning in all the other, crappy photos being taken by every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, by being put online side by side with the quality photography.

The traditional media outlets for photojournalism, magazines and newspapers, are struggling to stay afloat, most of them finding it extremely difficult to make the necessary profit to keep a staff of photojournalists and indeed to stay alive. These economic difficulties trickle down to the photojournalists, many of whom are now struggling to make a decent living from their work.

The traditional income sources, advertising and subscriptions, are drying up on the Internet. Without a fair revenue, we can’t expect professional photojournalists to continue their work. But the thing is, photojournalism is still needed, still in demand. Quality and trustworthiness equally so. Newspapers and magazines, not really that much needed anymore. The traditional outlets for photojournalism may be dying, but photojournalism is not!

Outline Of Future Scenario

Somehow the photojournalists, and indeed other professions with them, need to find a new way of connecting with their audiences. It will have to involve the use of new technologies that are used by people across the world. Online, mobile, fast, easy, adaptable, interactive and customizable are important key concepts here. At the same time, new revenue sources must be established. Micro-payments are often mentioned, and I think sponsorships (including government’s public service budgets) and affiliate programs will also become important.

When we’re talking about sponsored and ad-driven photojournalism, the danger is that the ideals of photojournalism can start to crumble. Both in the selection and angling of the stories, things like objectivity and focus on significant but underreported themes may be set aside. But these tendencies for the media world to be populistic and marked-driven in their coverage are in fact already here.

It will be interesting to see if media served via new technology will make matters better or worse in this respect!

The thing is, there’ll always be populistic, celebrity-driven material in the media, since that is what many consumers want - whether they like to admit it or not! But one of the huge differences between old media technology (stories printed on dead trees) and new technology (stories online) is that it can be done so that you only pay for what you get. When you buy a newspaper, you pay for the whole thing, including all those articles and entire sections that you don’t care about. If you subscribe to online news and features, you can select what you want and what you don’t want. You can select your niche. What the audience and sponsors will be willing to pay for is what we will get. But without the restrictions of geographical limited distribution, many new niches might emerge with a large enough audience to be worth wile pursuing for photojournalists!

There is still some technological development and change of user habits needed before this scenario can emerge. When a new king ascended the throne, the French used to say “Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi” (the old king is dead, long live the new king). And applying this to photojournalism, perhaps it is soon time to say “Photojournalism is dead. Long live Photojournalism!”