Friday 9 October 2009

PMO photo credit

One of our observant TSF tipsters in Welland did a double take while reading a story about a ground breaking at Niagara College with Prime Minister Stephen Harper on site.

The assigned story Friday was written by Trib staffer Wayne Campbell.

The photo credit reads "Prime Minister's Office photo."

The tipster says there are no full-time photographers at the Trib these days, where once it had two, plus two freelancers.

Who needs paid photographers when you have citizen photogs who work for free and you can lean on government agencies for free photos.

"What next, the story will be written by the government?" says the tipster.

As the song goes, and cheap is how we feel . . .

11 comments:

  1. Your tipster needs to know the facts. The photo was posted online only because it was the only immediately available artwork to go with breaking news (no different than when Sun uses a wire photo then replaces it when Sun art is available. The Tribune is a leader in providing its readers online news from the community. Our photog/reporter got the pics.
    Also, I can't ever remember The Trib ever having two full-time photogs.
    Get your facts straight!

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  2. The photo credit reads "Prime Minister's Office photo."

    I wonder how long before the local NDP, Liberals and Green Party jump on the Tribune and accuse it of being biased now that it has used a PMO photo.

    The paper should be ashamed for allowing that to happen. If the reporter was there, there was no reason he couldn't take a photo. No need for the paper to run a set up crap shot like that from the PMO.

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  3. In the end, some Tribune photos of the PM in Welland for the groundbreaking were used, but some were out of focus.

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  4. In reply to the first comment, The Welland Tribune, a long time Thomson paper always had two photographers, including Doug Kirkland who eventually went to California and is one of the best known celebrity photogs in the world.
    That number was reduced to one after Conrad Black's Stirling/Hollinger purchased the paper in 1995. Within six months of ownership half the staff was laid off.
    The last full-time photographer, J.T. lewis, who won numerous awards for The Tribune was laid off on November 28, 2006.

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  5. Bear in mind that this is being driven by the PMO itself, as was widely reported several months ago. I'm not sure how anyone could have missed it.

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  6. The photo on the front page of the Tribune was by staffer Wayne Campbell. Looks like they used the PMO photo online only

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  7. In reply to the first comment - Cec Mitchell and Mike DiBattista were there at the same time. When DiBattista left for the Niagara Falls Review, Dave Hanuschuk was brought on board with Mitchell. Then it went down to just Hanuschuk. There were at least three freelancers around that time as well. Then there was only one staff photographer - J.T. Lewis and when he was let go, the paper only had freelancer Joe Cseh to rely on. Cseh is still freelancing and reporters now have to be photographers and videographers.
    So the only fact the tipster and the blog did not have straight was the PMO photo and how would the tipster and blogger know the paper would have a staff photo in the print.

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  8. Quote: "The photo was posted online only because it was the only immediately available artwork to go with breaking news (no different than when Sun uses a wire photo then replaces it when Sun art is available."

    It is very different, and it's why many papers and wires have a policy of *not* using or transmitting PMO pictures. Use of PMO pictures or corporate handout photos for news stories destroys a paper's credibility. Using a third-party's property suggests a bias in favour of that third party.

    PMO pictures are *never* neutral, unbiased photos. They are prescreened before being released. PMO photos are exactly corporate handout PR pictures. No *real* newspaper would ever use a PR handout as a news photo.

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  9. "Use of PMO pictures or corporate handout photos for news stories destroys a paper's credibility. Using a third-party's property suggests a bias in favour of that third party."

    Yet we use them all the time in Ent/Life sections, even business pages.

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  10. "Yet we use them all the time in Ent/Life sections, even business pages."

    And it still mangles a paper's credibility. Exceptions are things like movie/TV stills, medical operations, NASA photos, etc. - events where a newspaper photographer simply cannot go. Handouts should not be used to compensate for lack of staff, lack of planning or lack of journalism skills. At least pretend you're professional and not a 16-yr old kid with a blog.

    Business example - today's Toronto Star Business section: two full pages of investing "news". Notice that these two pages talk only about a TD bank survey, quote only TD bank people, use only TD bank products as examples, show only TD bank people in the photo, and, here's the strange coincidence, also has two TD bank ads!

    The two pages are presented as current *news* and nowhere does it say "advertorial" or "advertising". The "news" is totally and fully biased in its coverage. It is not balanced journalism at all. The writer is not a Star reporter and, contrary to Star practice, it does not give any indication of the writer's qualifications. (At the end of a non-Star-writer's article, it will say something like, "John Doe is a law professor at York University" or "Jane Smith is the CEO of the XYZ company and also head of the Association of ABC").

    Conclusion: two pages of PR disguised as news => untrustworthy facts => credibility shot.

    Toronto Sun runs a Life story with a handout photo. Two pages later, the *exact same* photo is used in an ad. So, was that Life story "real" or was it, at best, an advertorial? Who knows, and all Life stories are now suspect. Journalism credibility shot.

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  11. Well, it's interesting to note that people remembered me. I did my internship at the Toronto Sun after Loyalist College. From being let go at the Tribune in 2006, it's been a struggle, trying to find my way. Seems that no one wants to pay for photography anymore. Hopefully, I will be making more e magazines soon, the first one, www.thebasicsofphotography.com was put online early September 2009.
    Friends of mine who still read the Tribune always remark how the photography efforts are quite lacking these days, photos badly composed and mostly out of focus, subject matter in poor taste and photos that really don't match the stories. Seems that quality photography isn't an issue in the small newspaper anymore. Shame, but, I really don't read the Tribune anymore as I find that the staffing issues have led to a paper that is barely capable of keeping up with the important news in the community anymore. I happened to see one weekend where they were asking for reader submissions for fair coverage one weekend and others have told me that the have announced that people should send in photos when they go to local events. Shame, professionalism in the small media sources has totally gone out the door in Canada. J.T. Lewis

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