What happened in the industry this month?

#ONPA MATTERS

It’s all about us.

1/ Voting for election to the 2024 ONPA Board of Trustees will open Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Please look for that announcement across all our usual channels. You need to be an ONPA member in good standing in order to vote. Click here to join or renew.

Nominated, are the following:

• Kim Barth, Board Chair (returning)
• Andrew Dolph, President (returning)
• Sam Greene, Vice President (returning)
• Kristen Bauer, Treasurer (new)
• Lisa Scalfaro, Secretary (new)
• Chris Reece, Television Vice President (returning)

Many thanks to Barbara Perenic and Gaelen Morse for their service.

2/ Up next for the Board will be closing out an announcement of the overall monthly clip contest winners, announcement of opening of the Annual Still & Multimedia Contest, and planning for this year’s convention – likely to take place again in Columbus.

3/ A reminder to students (and faculty): Rules for the Larry Fullerton Photojournalism Scholarship were recently revised to reflect changing trends in the industry. Please consider applying.

 

#OTHER INDUSTRY MATTERS

Where to begin? Where to end?

1/ NYT – City Summons Reporter to Court After He Asked Too Many Questions

2/ KSHB, Kansas City – Resignation letter from police chief who raided Marion, Kan., newspaper: ‘I do not want to defend my actions’

3/ Canton Repository – Louisville Herald ends operations after nearly 140 years

4/ Poynter – I can’t believe I have to say this but, DO NOT DO THIS: Opinion | A former sideline reporter stunningly admitted that she made things up

5/ WaPo – (paywalled) Content creators surge past legacy media as news hits a tipping point

“While a few national publications such as the New York Times and The Washington Post have seen their digital audiences grow, allowing them to reach hundreds of thousands more readers than they did a decade ago, the economics of journalism have shifted.”

6/ AI – I know, I know, we’re all tired of hearing about it. However, as news organizations continue scrambling to combat AI and at seemingly in the same breath embrace its various untold capabilities, upcoming hardware tech will likely shake us to our core. From PetaPixel: Samsung Gauss is a Generative AI That Will Live in its Next Smartphone

• WIRED – More on blocking and thwarting web scrapers feeding the trainers, here.
• Have I Been Trained? – A tool to check if your work, or likeness, has been used.

7/ The Drone Girl – Sally French offers up another great resource to find out if your drone is remote ID compliant, as well as links for external modules.

 

#PEOPLE

Movement, Highlights & More

1/ If you like calendars with pictures, 5-time-MPOY winner Steve Jessmorehas a new ‘Birds Doing Stuff’ calendar available for purchase, and more over on his website.

2/ Angelo Merendino, friend of ONPA, long-time Cleveland freelancer, and recent speaker at the ONPA conference of 2022, is packing up and closing his studio! Fret not, since most of his work is location, his stellar workcontinues – but on the road.

3/ Aaron Josefczyk, a Northeast Ohio Lifetouch school photography account representative and photographer, as well as freelancer – covering prep and pro sports, suffered a heart attack while covering the recent Ohio State football game in Michigan. He survived thanks to quick thinking and even quicker action by medical staff. A friend of his started a GoFundMe to help offset costs for Aaron.

4/ Congratulations to Kassi Filkins (Jackson), KSU alumnus, former staffer at the Hartford Courant, and Akronite to recently landing the job of multimedia reporter at Akron’s newly emergent, SignalAkron.

5/ Lori King, host and founder of The Buckeye Visualist, providing excellent audio content for ONPA, has recently signed on to NPPA’s newest venture, ‘The Visual Voice’. Way to go, Lori! As always, you can find her ONPA podcasts, here. *Note: she will be returning to content production for ONPA soon. Stay tuned!

 

#RESOURCES and #INSPIRATIONS

Helpful things and eye-catchers

1/ If you’re looking for work, Jamie’s List is a great resource. KSU alumnus Jamie Rose is co-founder of Momenta Workshops, among other notable achievements, aside from being an overall top advocate of journalism writ large.

2/ JOBS that I’ve stumbled upon:

• Reuters – A rare opening on Capitol Hill (deadline is soon). But, in all-things journalism there’s a story about just why this job is open. You can read about it, here. It’s never a good look to become the news as a working journalist, let alone one credentialed as a pool photographer on the hill. As all things political, I’ll be there’s more to the story.
• Certified Angus Beef, Wooster, Ohio – Yes, you read that right! Found via Poynter’s job board, CAB is looking to hire a multimedia specialist.
• Oberlin College and Conservatory – Director of Content and Social Media Strategy

3/ CameraBits – From the maker of PhotoMechanic, “Camera Bits Ambassador Jeff Vogan has just posted a new blog post on using Photo Mechanic. Jeff has created a super-powered workflow and there’s some great information in his post that you can read” [here]. NOTE: The company is also moving to subscription model!

4/ Do you use SquareSpace as a website hosting platform? Do you loathe the current trend in AI when it comes to visuals? If you, you can tell SquareSpace to disable generative AI training with ONE click of a button from your dashboard(s).

h/t to Jamie Rose for this!

5/ As the end of the year rapidly approaches, now is the time to make last-minute assessments and changes, especially if you are a freelancer. From Business Insider, 5 tips a financial planner recommends using now to save money on taxes in 2024.

6/ Vice – This Photographer Made a Camera Out of Police Bombs to Capture Riots

“People say photojournalists have to be impartial, but I want to be part of the movement,” Monteau says. The gilets jaunes don’t take the streets every weekend anymore, but the photographer continues to capture other social struggles with his camera to “create art with the devices used to control the population”.

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