What happened in the industry this month?
#ONPA MATTERS
1/ A personal note – I took a hiatus from tracking, gathering, and publishing content for this newsletter in August. There were some health issues – I’m fine now, and work was exceptionally demanding – a good thing for sure. As 50% of a newsroom covering a big rural county, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I am tired, but the work for this organization must carry on.Fortunately, as of this writing, The Times-Reporter is hiring a cops, courts and local government reporter! To that end, if you know anyone interested in filling the role in a very busy rural Ohio county, send them to apply here. What’s more Gannett seems to be opening up more and more roles for journalists across the country. If interested, you can use the publicly-facing job portal linked above. There are also other emergent journalism jobs beyond employment with the big one, such as the non-profit SignalAkron and SignalCleveland.
There’s a lot going on the world and it’s hard to keep up. I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to drop me a line.
What are you photographing, or have photographed that you really love and excites you?
2/ The Board – We met over Zoom, Sunday morning, Oct. 1. A tentative date and location was agreed upon for the 2024 convention – stay tuned for more information! Elections will take place this year as it is an odd year. Look for more information about that in your email soon. If you are interested in running for a Board position, please reach out to me via email at, onpaprez@gmail.com, and we’ll get your name on the ballot.
A note: Membership is about so much more than contests. It takes a good deal of time and energy to keep the organization up and running to support its members, organize and execute judging, as well as the yearly convention. If you’d like to contribute in any shape or form, or would like to serve on the Board, please reach out.
#OTHER INDUSTRY MATTERS
Where to begin? Where to end?
1/ NiemanReports – 9 Hard Truths About Reviving Local News
“Press Forward launch. Alden still buying. Texas Tribune’s reckoning. Invasions of Kansas newsrooms. Beyond news fatigue, active news avoidance. “Prompt engineers,” perhaps replacing journalists.”
Are your tabs still open? Good – mine too, and the above story remains open, because there’s a lot to unpack in that thoughtfully written story.
“Ashland University’s student newspaper The Collegian found itself stripped of its beloved adviser on Aug. 21, when Ted Daniels received official notice that, after years of teaching student journalists to be dogged investigators, his pedagogy had likely cost him his job. Then, just days later, Ashland demanded that The Collegian begin submitting stories to campus officials for review before publication.”
Why does it matter? Well, in a nutshell: The First Amendment. Yes, The Collegian operates under a financial model using student fees to fund itself, and operates at a private college; however, the institution reportedly has long stood upon carved-out laurels portending to support student free speech. And as such, it apparently has enjoyed independent reporting – until now.
Ted Daniels was a long-time former editor at the Ashland-Times Gazette. He has since been replaced by a professional working journalist acting as an advisor.
WCPN Ideastream reported on the matter, Tuesday morning, Sept. 26. You can read/listen, here.
4/ MassMu – The Nomadic Photo Ark will be in Massillon, Ohio, September 25–October 6!
“The Ark is a mobile darkroom with a focus on analog photography and storytelling operated by Monica Frisell and Adam Scher. Within their trailer, the photographers operate a fully equipped, black-and-white darkroom that they use to amass content for a project called Portrait of US. Frisell and Scher describe the Ark as a compilation of snapshots that ultimately produces “a mosaic of community life and what binds us together, collectively, as Americans.”
While in Massillon, the photographers invite you to visit the mobile darkroom and have your portrait taken and story recorded. Stay tuned for more details about their location and hours of operation!”
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5/ The Darkroom Rumour – Speaking of all things analog, have you viewed “Koudelka: Shooting the Holy Land”? If so, I’d love to hear about it!
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6/ NYT – Two things can be true at the same time, yet the industry continues down a path of change, for better or worse. One thing remains clear: the world deserves more journalists and more journalism.
7/ The Observer – Don McCullin: ‘Photographing landscapes takes my mind off all I’ve seen. It’s healing’
“Photojournalism is dead. We’ve become obsessed with glamour and gloss: footballers, narcissism and gossip. Nobody wants the pictures I used to take.”
-Don McCullin
I firmly disagree with Mr. McCullin’s statement – it is self-serving and dismissive at best.
8/ Poynter, via BlueChalkMedia – Opinion | When is it appropriate for a journalist to get involved in a story? Two USA Today Network reporters covering the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia stopped reporting and tried to put out a fire. It was the right move.
9/ The Financial Review, AUS – Mainstream media in Australia is messing around with generative AI in editorial publication — and it’s really bad. Hint: look at their hands. All three images shown in the social media lede are AI-generated images of real people. There’s so much wrong with this, I’m not sure where to start. One thing is certain: the work previously done by professional photographers will diminish if decisions to use AI as a reasonable substitute continue. This is really sad, frustrating, and infuriating.
As Sue Morrow so eloquently stated, “Why the f*&% would they do that?”
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10/ Poynter – The state of journalism in 6 acts. There’s reason to be upbeat
“ … get up close and you start to understand why nearly 60% of journalists are optimistic about their profession.”
11/ On The Media – The Story Behind Gannett’s AI Debacle
“In late August, Gannett, the country’s largest newspaper company, rolled out a new artificial intelligence service that promised to automate high school sports coverage across the country. And within a matter of days it had gone horribly wrong.”
12/ ASMP – The Human Element: A Photographic Portraiture Competition from Time & ASMP
“TIME, with an audience of more than 120 million people worldwide across its platforms, and the American Society of Media Photographers, for over 75 years one of the world’s leading photography organizations, have joined forces to create the most important new photo competition in a generation, showcasing the photographic portrait in all its forms, and celebrating the amazing diversity of the people and cultures across our planet.”
Ok, so what the big deal, right? THIS is the big deal:
“Categories for entry include: portraits of family, portraits in the world, portraits of influence, an open category (which includes work using AI), and a series category (for thematic series of three to six images).”
13/ Chronicle-Telegram – A threat to the C-T was averted. An Elyria Township man is in custody in connection with a threat at the Chronicle-Telegram building on Sunday, Sept. 26.
14/ CJR – In defense of aggressive small-town newspapers
#PEOPLE
1/ If you have not read the story by now, or heard the news, we lost Neal Lauron after a long battle with Cancer. Neal was a long-time staffer at the Columbus Dispatch.
Remembering the work of former Dispatch photojournalist Neal Lauron
2/ Sarabeth Maney, staffer at the Detroit Free Press, has announced in a Tweet (or is it Xeet? I dunno …) that she is, “So thrilled to share I’ll be joining @propublica as their first Diamonstein-Spielvogel Visual Fellow. I’ll be collaborating with the in-depth investigative team and can’t wait for what the next two years has in store!”
Way to go!
#RESOURCES and #INSPIRATIONS
Helpful things and eye-catchers
1/ Bird in Flight – ‘We Are Not Going Back to Wedding Photography’: How Kostiantyn and Vlada Liberov Started Shooting the War
‘Love story and wedding photographers before the full-on invasion, Vlada and Kostiantyn Liberov are now documenting the war. Their pictures are now featured in the publications of The Associated Press, one of the largest news agencies worldwide. Bird in Flight talked to them and found out how the spouses picked up documentary photography.’
2/ The Guardian – The Kamoinge legacy: the black photographers who changed the game
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3/ PetaPixel – Photographer Captures Formal Portraits of ‘Misunderstood’ Pigeons
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4/ WaPo – A Capital Summer
Nicely photographed, produced, and edited visual journal of photographs by some of the best in the industry from the region they cover.
5/ A parting thought from one of my favorites:
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