Sport Illustrated got rid of their last full time photographers

[Microbois]

Just saw that sad story on Thom Hogan's website. Thom does raises a few very interesting questions about that decision, but unfortunately, this is where the business has been going for the last couple years.

 

[acparsons]

No integrity.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

I think that these magazines and papers that are laying off all of their photographers are going to be in big trouble when they realize that the great images are a very large part of what creates value in their product.. especially a publication like SI. I get that people want to read the news not necessarily look at pictures of what happened... but who reads SI without expecting to see great photographs of the games?

 

[runnah]

Again? This is like the third time this month.

 

[Designer]

Can they get the images they want through other channels?

 

[W.Y.Photo]

Can they get the images they want through other channels?

When you remove known quality contributors from your locked in and permanent staff, advertisers all start to wonder what that will do to quality of readers/viewers down the road. SI just started a lot of folk in the ad business wondering what’s going to happen to quality.

That’s not to say that there isn’t opportunity here, though. Sports Illustrated is now free to use those dollars that had locked in key staff to pay for “best content available.” Somehow it never seems to work out that way in practice, though. Upper management tends to see cost cuts, not change in content, as the key return. Indeed, I’d be very surprised if this move wasn’t done partly for cost cutting. Someone upstairs probably said something akin to “we’ll keep the same amount of money for images that we paid them in salary, but we’ll take back the overhead costs (office space, benefits, etc.).”

It doesn’t help that SI’s Web site is a bit of a mess, or that many of the images they’re using online are already from services such as Getty Images. Covering “all sports” isn’t exactly easy, after all, and there’s no way that SI could possibly have staff photographers everywhere they need to cover. Still, one wonders about the Big Events (Olympics, Super Bowl, Final Four, etc.). Before, the SI staff photographers had the luxury of doing long planning for these things (e.g. Bill Frakes great slit-scan track-and-field work at the Olympics). Now, I’m not so sure. Those same photographers have to make a day-to-day living that pays their health care, retirement plans, and more, so short of SI paying them huge amounts to cover those Big Events, I’m guessing that they’ll get less prep and less distinguishing content, simply because there won’t be anyone paying for the planning time.

SI’s started a race to the bottom. Those never end well.

Anyone want to start a sports image publication that bids for the best now? The time is ripe.

 

[Microbois]

The current model of the news business is flawed in today's economy because newspapers and magazines are printed on paper.

It costs tons of money to get mags/newspapers printed, delivered across the country (some are worldwide), put on displays at newsstands, unsold copies recovered and recycled, etc. Because this whole business model is very expensive, because a good website platform can deliver so much more interactive content than a static printed magazine, and because advertisers are massively spending their budgets on developping their own Internet presence for marketing and advertisement purposes, sooner photographers realize this, instead of agonizing until extinction, better off we have a chance to survive.

What does it have to do with SI?

Well, maybe it's time for those photographers to create a unique online magazine where the big bulk of their best work is featured on their own website. They no longer have to leave great pictures out because their story is scheduled for a 2 pages only article, they no longer have to squeeze a picture on 2 columns, because that's the layout they're stuck with. SI photographers can get pictures that no one else can't even dream about, so they should sell that on their own website, and some more (super slow-mos being one of them). There's a entire new business model that needs to be created, and I don't understand why it's not getting there faster. Photographers, columnists, journalists, and those people should break free from their former employers and just make their own specialized media. The future doesn't belong to a few major players, but zillions of small businesses, and each of them having their own identity.

Anyway, that's what I've done myself. I use to write for woodworking magazines, but most of them have shut down, so I made my own online magazine, and while it's a rough ride for sure, I get to write exactly what I want, and I publish the pictures I like the most (not the editor's questionable choice), and guess what? Advertisers are back as I'm attracting traffic more than their own website.

Build it, and they will come.

 

[W.Y.Photo]

The current model of the news business is flawed in today's economy because newspapers and magazines are printed on paper.

It costs tons of money to get mags/newspapers printed, delivered across the country (some are worldwide), put on displays at newsstands, unsold copies recovered and recycled, etc. Because this whole business model is very expensive, because a good website platform can deliver so much more interactive content than a static printed magazine, and because advertisers are massively spending their budgets on developping their own Internet presence for marketing and advertisement purposes, sooner photographers realize this, instead of agonizing until extinction, better off we have a chance to survive.

What does it have to do with SI?

Well, maybe it's time for those photographers to create a unique online magazine where the big bulk of their best work is featured on their own website. They no longer have to leave great pictures out because their story is scheduled for a 2 pages only article, they no longer have to squeeze a picture on 2 columns, because that's the layout they're stuck with. SI photographers can get pictures that no one else can't even dream about, so they should sell that on their own website, and some more (super slow-mos being one of them). There's a entire new business model that needs to be created, and I don't understand why it's not getting there faster. Photographers, columnists, journalists, and those people should break free from their former employers and just make their own specialized media. The future doesn't belong to a few major players, but zillions of small businesses, and each of them having their own identity.

Anyway, that's what I've done myself. I use to write for woodworking magazines, but most of them have shut down, so I made my own online magazine, and while it's a rough ride for sure, I get to write exactly what I want, and I publish the pictures I like the most (not the editor's questionable choice), and guess what? Advertisers are back as I'm attracting traffic more than their own website.

Build it, and they will come.

That's an excellent point. These photographers, rather than going off to try and find work with another publication that will eventually ditch them would be much better off starting their own website and drawing on their already large group of fans and previous subscribers.

 

[photoguy99]

We can all be, basically, digital hunter gatherers, throwing away all the scaling benefits of specialization and consolidation!

This is gonna be great. I for one look forward to a diet of digital roots and grubs.