E-Media Tidbits

Yahoo News YouWitness News (a Yahoo News venture) published this audio slideshow of the Thai coup using photos from Flickr.

On Dec. 4, Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media posted an intriguing article with lots of historical context: The Demise of the Professional Photojournalist.

Gillmor wrote: "In a world of ubiquitous media tools, which is almost here, someone will be on the spot every time. And there will be business models and methods to support their work."

He continues, "...There are far more newsworthy situations than pro picture takers. In the past, most of those situations never were captured. Not any longer. Is it so sad that the professionals will have more trouble making a living this way in coming years? To them, it must be -- and I have friends in the business, which makes this painful to write in some ways. To the rest of us, as long as we get the trustworthy news we need, the trend is more positive."

And in an update to this article, he wrote, "I'm not saying all professional photojournalism will disappear. Great feature photography is a special skill that amateurs won't match anytime soon, if ever. There will be many cases, as well, where even the pros get in place to capture the spot-news picture. But they won't be able to be everywhere at once. And in an era when news organizations are whacking away at staff as fast as they can, the pressure to use what the community can provide will be irresistible given the money it will save. I'm not saying this evolution is an entirely positive development (though it will help in some circumstances). I am saying it's inevitable."

Meanwhile, journalism professor Mindy McAdams called attention today to this photo slideshow with audio, In the Wake of the Coup. It's part of the new Yahoo News citizen journalism venture, YouWitness. This slideshow covers the September 2006 coup in Thailand (mentioned earlier in Tidbits).

According to McAdams, this slideshow "is wholly composed of photos from Flickr. It is designed and produced by Chris Strimbu (Yahoo! News multimedia producer) using an audio report from Ezra Palmer (Yahoo! News managing editor)."

Food for thought.

Personally I think there will always be a need for professional photojournalists -- especially with the know-how, equipment, and connectivity to cover hard-to-reach or dangerous places. So maybe we won't need so many photojournalists in New York City or Washington, D.C. Maybe we could relocate some of these talented pros to Africa, Siberia, the Himalayas, and other far-flung points we haven't been covering so well for a long time.