When John H. White was 14 years old, his father put him in charge of photographing the reconstruction of his church. When he was 37, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Photojournalism. When he was 68, he was laid off from his position at the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper.
In an interview with NPR, White recalls the day of the layoff.
“We received an email that there would be a meeting, and it was mandatory, and so I thought, ‘Well maybe we’re all gonna get new equipment.’ And no one knew what it was about. … The editor came in at 9:30 and made a statement to the point that, ‘As we move towards the technology and the digital things of this nature, we’re eliminating the photo department — the photographers and staff.’ I think somebody said [the announcement]was 20 seconds, I don’t know. But there was one person [who]said, ‘Is this real? Did he just say that?’”
[tabgroup][/tabgroup]Since 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times has been the headline of other newspapers regarding various layoffs. It started in June of 2010, with sports media columnist Jim O’Donnell and features writer Delia O’Hara.
By the end of May 2013 the entire photography staff was laid off, the Sun-Times claiming the department would be restructuring and relying on the use of freelance photographers and non-photographer journalists. In an official statement posted on the Chicago Sun-Times website, the newspaper explained:
“The Sun-Times business is changing rapidly and our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities with video and other multimedia elements.”
John H. White was one of those 28 photographers, and had been working with the Sun-Times for decades. In an interview with Poynter, he said:
“It was as if they pushed a button and deleted a whole culture of photojournalism,” White says. “I never heard the two words, ‘thank you,’ that day. I never heard that. I didn’t need to hear it, but… it saddens me.”
In the same Poynter interview, former Sun-Times managing editor Gregory Favre referred to the situation as “cutting the eyes out of the body”, claiming that skilled photographers were essential to completing articles.
More layoffs are in store
Despite the fact that the newspaper has reported increases in circulation, a $100 million budget cut has been ordered for 2014 as well as another round of layoffs, according to media blogger Robert Feder. The newspaper itself has not only reduced their staff but has reduced the size and content of its paper.
Thom Clark, president of Community Media Workshop at Columbia College Chicago says, “We’ve lost a phenomenal amount of talented journalists and photojournalists in the continuing decline of traditional media outlets like daily newspapers. As a news consumer, the thinner and thinner Sun-Times now has just too many wire and celebrity pics. I miss the eye of full-time local photogs capturing our city’s people and region.”
The Sun-Times plans to rely on reporters and freelancers to take over the twenty eight photo positions and has been given mandatory “iPhone photography basics” to use while they are on the scene. This has created mixed opinions from people around the country.
Chicago journalism historian Wayne Klatt says, “I had thought that laying off staff photographers would have been disastrous, but I have changed my mind. Two weeks ago the Sun-Times and the Tribune carried front page photos about a shooting that killed and wounded some people on the South Side. The Tribune staff photographer took a standard, dull photo of neighbors gathering around the site. They looked like neighbors standing still. But a free-lancer working for the Sun-Times went into the hospital ward where one of the wounded was lying on a transport cart, and his girlfriend was draped across him and kissing him even though he apparently was unresponsive. God, that was a great — and human — photo. Perhaps it invaded the two people’s privacy, but it brought home the horror of gun violence and the strength of people even in such communities.”
Some get mad, others blog
Some of the laid off photographers, however, have different opinions. Since losing their jobs, photographers such as Jim Romenesko and Robert Hart have taken to the Internet to express their opinions.
“Laid off from the Sun-Times” is Hart’s blog, created on the website Tumblr. The tagline of his website states, “Rob Hart was replaced with a reporter with an iPhone, so he is documenting his new life with an iPhone, but with the eye of a photojournalist trained in storytelling.”
Hart uses his blog to share photos taken with his iPhone. The majority of the photos are uploaded to Instagram, which is an online photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, apply digital filters to them, and share them on a variety of social networking services.
Romenesko uses a different blogging website, Blogger, to share his life post-layoff. The blog is primarily news reports regarding various forms of journalism layoffs as well as major news stories and his personal opinions on these matters. He also keeps up-to-date on any progress between the Sun-Times and the Chicago Newspaper Guild.
An unnamed individual created “SunTimes/DarkTimes”, a blog dedicated to photographs taken after the Sun-Times layoffs. The anonymous author uses the blogging website Tumblr to post photos from the online and print versions of the newspaper. The author makes it apparent that something is wrong with each individual post, whether the picture is clearly taken with a smart phone or is taken unprofessionally by cutting off the heads of people in the photo or being off centered.
History for sale
On October 15, 2013, an ad in the Sun-Times said, “Now available for purchase: striking, one-of-a-kind photos from the Sun-Times archive! Buy them now at photos.suntimes.com.” Romenesko blogged about it, saying that these photos were from the former photographers of the Sun-Times and that they were getting none of the profits.
Barbara Iverson, journalism professor at Columbia College Chicago, says, “The fact that the Sun-Times is selling archival photos by the fired photogs which in my view, seems sadly symbolic of the current management’s style, that being more about money than quality.”
The Guild speaks out
The Chicago Newspaper Guild, the union for media and related industries in the Chicago metropolitan area, has been on the case since May. They have been organizing protests and speaking out against the layoffs.
President Bernie Lunzer said in an official statement, “As a union, we are deeply concerned about the workers who are losing good, family-wage jobs. As an organization of journalists, we are appalled that any newspaper would treat its photojournalists as expendable.”
There haven’t been any updates from the Chicago Newspaper Guild, but the legal battle is still going on between them and the Sun-Times.
White moves forward
White has been one of the only positive speaking photographers that were let go from the Sun-Times, speaking with a grateful tone on the decades he spent with the newspaper and thanking God for the opportunity.
In an interview with NPR, White says, “I will not curse the darkness. I will light candles. I will live by my three ‘F’ words: faith, focus and flight. I’ll be faithful to life, my purpose in life, my assignment from life. Stay focused on what’s really important, what counts.”
Hart says, “John H. White taught us to be like the lightning bug and never let anyone contain our light.”
White still teaches photojournalism part-time at Columbia College Chicago and is a volunteer photographer at La Rabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago.
SIDEBAR:
In March 2011, six editorial and feature writers were laid off: sportswriter Jack Johnson, feature writer Celeste Busk, high school sports reporter Steve Tucker, reporter Misha Davenport, general assignment reporter Cheryl Jackson, and media and marketing columnist Lewis Lazare. The same happened to real estate writer Bill Cunniff, feature reporter Jeff Johnson, gaming writer John Grochowski, and graphic designer Char Searl in May 2011. In August 2011, the Sun-Times laid off three more reporters and writers: sportswriter Mike Mulligan, “Quick Hits” sports columnist Elliott Harris and photographer Keith Hale. In December 2011, the Sun-Times laid off more editorial staff, including longtime feature writer Mary Houlihan.
