Social Media Means the End of Old-School Photojournalism

Freelance photographers have a hard time breaking news, thanks to Instagram.

Todd Maisel, 59, didn’t always work seven days a week. It used to be a mellow five days as a staff photographer at the New York Daily News — once called “New York’s Picture Newspaper” for its emphasis on photography — where he cemented a reputation as a living legend, snagging exclusives as the first to the scene of local disasters.

But after 18 years in the position, parent company Tribune Publishing, formerly known as Tronc, torched half of the newsroom, including the entire photography team. Maisel was one of ten photographers to be let go. Independent for the first time in nearly two decades, he now works on a day rate for local New York City outlets the Brooklyn Eagle and Newsday. For the entire month of December, with the sole exception of Christmas, he worked every single day.

I rode along with him on a recent day that started with a mayoral press conference and turned into hours of driving through Brooklyn, following anything potentially interesting gleaned from the police scanner in Maisel’s car. He edited and captioned photos from the press conference when he can, from behind the wheel, his laptop fixed between the front seats.

“I have to work twice as hard,” Maisel said as he pulls into a side street to devote some time to the photos while eating his lunch — a granola bar. “I have to be smarter.” He’ll later write the story to accompany the images, as the Brooklyn Eagle hasn’t assigned a reporter. The ability to write copy is now useful in making yourself more marketable as a photographer, he explained.

Maisel has experienced the decline of a certain breed of photojournalism, the ambulance-chasing, Weegee-esque tradition of old New York. The era is ending thanks in part to the ubiquity of smartphone cameras and the immediacy of social media. Any jerk with an iPhone can document newsworthy happenings, right away.

If a shooting breaks out or a fire ravages an apartment building, the first to document the scene will be a bystander. News organizations need only seek permission from the poster to use the photo (see all those thirsty tweets from TV channels trying to run videos of disasters). The poster will usually agree, no license fees necessary. “Newspapers are looking for freebies, and they’re less inclined to worry about mediocrity,” said Maisel. “That’s really sad.”

So if you still want to earn a living taking photos, you need to adapt. You should probably have a formidable social media presence, for one (Maisel uses Twitter to share his work). At the very least, you need some sort of preexisting arrangement with an editor if you’re going to survive on breaking news, because you won’t be able to sell your photos after the fact.

The media industry is struggling everywhere, of course. But for photojournalists it’s a reckoning with business models as well as a way of life. “The value of the individual image has been diminished, without a doubt,” said John Smock, director of the photojournalism program at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

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Freelance photographers describe an inhospitable industry in which it is near impossible to make a living on photojournalism alone. Many photograph weddings, take headshots, or work in studios. Maisel trades stocks on the side. Though the majority of his income is from freelance photojournalism, he said that income alone is still insufficient to support him, even when the work is non-stop. He has to keep up with expenses, which have also climbed. Having lost his health insurance with his job, he now pays over $1,000 a month for COBRA.

Sophia Guida, a photojournalist based in New York City, said she had been unable to earn a living wage as a freelancer. She’s taking a break from the work to focus on her own projects after trying her hand both at breaking-news photography and working as a studio assistant.

“I’ve gone to protests and events and these things that might be newsworthy, then I send pictures to editors who I know and I never hear anything back,” Guida said. “I wonder if partially they don’t even need to engage with someone like me because everybody has a phone and there is so much media being produced all around.”

The pay for one-off assignments varies wildly. Ben Fractenberg, a former freelancer who recently joined local news non-profit The City (and previously worked with me at DNAinfo New York) said he observed a range of $100 per assignment to a $450 day-rate (a flat fee for shooting and editing the photos) at some legacy papers. Fractenberg estimated the average day rate falls between $250 to $300.

The main concern beyond the initial rate, he said, is ensuring the photographer can resell the photos later. Guida said she was once hired to produce three days of work for $200. She did the work before being sent a work-for-hire contract, which gives the publication the rights to the photos. She refused the sign the contract and the assignment was scrapped.

The advent of crime-tracking services, by photographers’ telling, has exacerbated the issues already raised by platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. Citizen, an app that allows residents to report crimes for the benefit of their neighbors and livestream incidents, launched in New York City in early 2017. Those streams may then be snagged by news organizations, either as video or as stills. A journalist for the Observer earlier this month wondered if Weegee himself would be using the app were he alive today, and set out to channel the legendary crime photographer by snapping eerie black-and-white photos of crime scenes.

“How are people supposed to make a living if they are essentially being replaced by technology?” said photographer Lloyd Mitchell, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Post, and Reuters. “Just off the click of a button? And it’s not very good quality video or photography that they’re getting.” Fractenberg argued that a professional photographer can provide a fuller picture of a story in all its complexity by intentionally “layering” elements rather than just snapping stills of one figure devoid of context.

In other words, they use their ingrained skills and eye as photojournalists to create more critical, more enduring work. There’s a world of difference between a one-off photo attached to a tweet and a lifelong practice of image-making. Yet that very expertise might be a luxury for struggling publications. Budgets are shrinking everywhere even as the frenetic news cycle demands more content faster than ever.

A fire that breaks out in the morning might not be front-page material by afternoon. Guida also pointed to an increased interest in national over local stories, while Mitchell observed an increased demand for celebrity photos and a lack of interest in breaking news. Even over the past year he’s noticed more difficulty selling breaking-news material.

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John Smock, the Craig Newmark director of photojournalism, doesn’t see these changes as total disaster, however. He argued that complaints romanticize a “golden heyday” when newspaper jobs were plentiful. “It’s always been a struggle to be a freelancer,” he said. “I just don’t feel the crowdsourced stuff is, in reality, that big a threat.”

Either Smock is wrong or the practicing photojournalists are. They certainly feel embattled, but social media isn’t entirely bad. It can be a tool for career-building, though perhaps at the expense of time spent working, as writers have long known from Twitter.

Fractenberg, who described a challenging bout of freelancing before landing a staff gig, did attribute his meticulously maintained Instagram presence with a steady flow of business. A successful photographer must be their own brand ambassador, taking on the work of an influencer monetizing self-promotion in addition to their job. The immediacy of social media both gives and takes away. “It’s a blessing and a curse,” said Fractenberg.

Maisel does not maintain an Instagram, but he has an online portfolio and posts regularly on Twitter (he’s wise enough to watermark his photos so those lazy newspapers can’t swipe them for free). His assessment of social media’s impact is a bit more stark.

He recalled covering a homicide in an apartment building and capturing the perp’s arrest. It was good footage, but a wannabe Weegee had beat him to the punch. “Before we were ever able to sell the work, it was already up on Citizen,” he said. “Somebody had posted from inside the building, the guy laying on the floor.”

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