Chicago Sun Times Lays off photographers.

ian408

Chicago Sun Times Lays off Entire Photo Staff

Headline says it all. Sad day when 28 people lose their jobs.

David_S85

Worse yet, it affects the entire Sun-Times Media Group, which includes dozens of suburban publications as well. Maybe I'll be shooting more now. I had better learn to use the video side of my dSLR.

ian408

I also happen to think we'll be seeing fewer 'professional' photographs and more 'amateur' submissions. TV news already shows cell phone video for some stories today.

Richard

Sad news. They're obviously trying to cut costs--which is understandable--but the quality will suffer. I'm not sure it's a good strategy. Seems to me that they're not going to be able to compete with other (largely free) media unless they offer compelling content, writing and images that people will be willing to pay for. Dunno.

ian408

I think the strategy is to reduce cost and have contractors and the public submit video that can be used by other outlets. I sort of feel like this signals the beginning of the end for printed newspapers. We may easily see the Chicago Sun Times as an e-paper whose stories are a mixture of video and text. Maybe a few stills picked off the video

I'm not sure how long having crappy video (ie; cell phone) or crappy & meaningless still images will be acceptable though.

LinusM

Crappy content will win through as long as they have some kind of circulation figure. I worked within the National newspapers for the last 20 years and could see the writing on the wall within the first few years of being there.

Too many big fish in an ever declining pool - I jumped out. Its the best thing I could have done. Journalism is a very demoralising industry these days, a shame but the glory days went years ago. now its just cheap stories and readers photos :-(

ziggy53

Sun-Times, union deal would bring back 4 photographers

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-sun-times-photographers-20131203,0,420997.story

"Sun-Times Media, publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, has agreed to hire back four fired photographers as part of a new collective bargaining agreement, according to a union spokesman.

The tentative three-year agreement with the Chicago Newspaper Guild, which was ratified Monday night by employees at the Chicago Sun-Times and Northwest Indiana Post-Tribune, also includes a lump sum payment of $2,000 for fired photographers not rehired."

From 28 to 4 photographers, and only $2,000 severance pay for the 24 not rehired. Still a pretty good deal for the Sun-Times Media.