Are photographers real journalists? When it comes to the hierarchy of the newsroom, do the people who take pictures get treated the same as those who provide words?
For this issue’s Talking Point, internationally renowned photojournalist Diego Goldberg argues that sometimes photographers are treated as second class citizens at work – and it is partly their own fault.
Diego has seen things from both sides of the fence.
He has operated all over the world taking pictures for many leading news publications, winning prizes and plaudits in the process. Then, from 1996 to 2003, he was the Photo Editor at Clarin, the Argentinean newspaper with the largest circulation in the Spanish-speaking world.
In most of the world, photojournalists work in newspapers and magazines as salaried members in fixed structures.
Freelance photographers - independent or through photo agencies - work mainly in the US and Western Europe, where markets are sufficiently developed to sustain such an activity.
These two ways of practicing our profession generate different mentalities and work practices.
Freelancers, by necessity, learn to think for themselves. They have to be informed, decide what is important and what superfluous, generate ideas, propose assignments, develop a point of view, investigate the themes they want to cover and produce them.
They have to make themselves heard, they have to “sell” their ideas to the editors. In short, they have to be journalists. It is a Darwinian imperative, their survival is at stake.
On the other hand, staff photographers on newspapers and magazines work somewhere which, in some respects, resembles a fire station.
Photographers wait to be called for daily assignments chosen and developed in the newsroom by journalists. The photographer is an illustrator, provider of visual “proofs” of what will be written later. Not really a journalist with a point of view.
The information flow is a one-way street in most newsrooms and whenever a story comes up, a driver and a photographer are summoned at the same time and almost with the same relevance - as we used to joke at Clarin.
Of course, there is another reality we also have to consider. Because journalists largely outnumber photojournalists in media structures, photographers have to cover all types of assignments and jump from one story to another no matter what the subject is. Rarely do they have a chance to develop or specialize in the type of stories that they are best suited for.
In my experience this system devalues the role of the photojournalist, encourages a laissez-faire attitude and reduces their role to that of passive actor in the media discourse. This need not and should not be so.
For this to change, photo departments have to generate a flow of information, proposals and assignment ideas towards the newsroom. Photo editors play a crucial part in this: they have to have an active role in the newsroom and a hierarchical position according to their responsibilities.
The photo editor is the link between the photo department and the newsroom with a role to listen and suggest, propose and accept.
The photo editor has to lead, inspire and motivate the photographers, establishing work routines, acting as a conduit for the photographers’ ideas and initiatives. They have a key role in changing the one way street to a two way avenue .
The situation and status of photojournalists in many countries has to change and we must not mince our words. Photographers often feel that they are not seen as true and fully-fledged journalists. And they should also be prepared to accept some of the blame.
As Picture Editor at Clarin, I urged photographers to come up with ideas for stories. I even once promised to relieve them from their daily tasks to pursue any story they might want to photograph.
Of the more than fifty staff photographers, only two came up with wonderful ideas, journalists were then assigned to write them and they were published in our Sunday magazine as illustrated in the gallery linked to from the right.
The fact that so few photographers came up with ideas has to do with how they see themselves and fight for space in a competitive environment such as the newsroom. They feel dejected and therefore perform as passive subjects which confirms, for others, their image as professionals of a lesser rank. It is a vicious circle that must be broken.
Photographers have to claim their well-deserved place in the structures of newspapers and magazines. The photographer has to become a full time journalist with an agenda and contacts: gaining access, developing exclusive stories, investigating themes and proposing assignments. It has to be an active role, not only in suggesting “picture stories” but in the normal newsworthy daily production cycle of the newsroom.
Things can and must change and it is largely in the hands of photographers themselves.
Diego Goldberg
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Tomas Stargardter did just that after reading Talking Point about how technology is changing the new business in Enter edition five. Read what he had to say by clicking here.
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