Photojournalism isn't dead... it just smells funny?

Roy Greenslade, over at the Guardian has picked up the lament of one Neil Burgess, a photo agency boss concerned about the decline of photojournalism. Greenslade quotes Burgess:

"Magazines and newspapers are no longer putting any money into photojournalism...Today I look at the world of magazine and newspaper publishing and I see no photojournalism being produced."

You can read the full post here, but what I found most interesting is the fact The Guardian chose to illustrate the story with this graphic (right). Many of you will instantly recognise it as Robert Capa's iconic 'Death Of A Militiaman'. 

Capa was lauded in 1936 when he revealed a photo which he claimed captured the exact moment of death of a soldier fighting in the Spanish Civil War. But the validity of the picture has always been the cause of much speculation. More recently critics have condemned it outright as a fake.

So I'm not sure whether The Guardian is therefore using this photo to suggest photojournalism has been on the rocks for at least 74 years, has always been open to 'gaming', or could ever justifiably be conducted at the expense of the truth.

Either way, it doesn't make a strong case for wanting to preserve it, which is a shame because there are a great many which do.

Comments

[Peter Demain]

I asked a question of a guy over at Paul Bradshaw's Media Blog. I knew the answer already, or more accurately was pretty sure what it would be; that they do not teach much by way of photography and technique on the Journalism BA courses.

That's not good for photojournalism which has now been scaled back to (often staged) trash parapazzo stuff of the 'beach photos' variety, plus deriving pictures from PA/AP/Reuters/etc. For me, the best element of journalism is going out and getting one's own snaps. But this is neither encouraged or promoted in the education of the new generation of journalists; it actually would be better to do a photography course and just learn all the tricks of the trade through primary experience in my view. You'll find the practical knowledge - which can be pretty technical and daunting - to be much more applicable to what you want to do.

The principles of journalism can be picked up by most people intelligent enough to grasp how to do decent snaps. They also have modules for FOI in courses...FOI takes a few hours of reading up for much of what you'd ever want. 70-80% of requests are from civilian non-journalists who mostly did not formally learn about it.

A lot of the young people will have a stereotype of 'what journalism is' - and this often involves going around getting news and taking pictures. That this is now the exception rather than the rule must elude a lot of youngsters who partake in a course in haste.

-Pete @ dirtygarnet.com