File under: the media is the news
Last week, the Chicago Sun-Times, one of the oldest newspapers in the country, announced it was laying off all of its full-time staff photographers.
According to the Associated Press, the decision was reached in part to make way for more online video. The Chicago News Guild estimates that 28 photographers, including Pulitzer Prizewinner John H White, got the cut.
The guild will be filing an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, and according to the Guild’s Twitter feed, there will be a picket protest in Chicago on Thursday.
The move by Sun-Times Media is unprecedented. There have been mass layoffs in the newspaper industry before, but not to this degree. It also seems to be the first time that the journalists being fired are actually fighting back.
If the laid-off photographers manage to win against the Sun-Times, it might shatter the paradigm that in order for old media to transform into new media, corners need to be cut and people must necessarily lose their jobs.
Hopefully it happens that way. The media needs a good kick in the pants, and hopefully, with this in addition to the DOJ phone record swiping scandal, this will signal some kind of change.