Tight limits on War Photographers

A NYTimes story about Iraq War photojournalism coverage. The trend is if a photo is made of injured soldiers or especially those killed in action, the photog is removed from their embed. There's a good gallery of images as well.

Inspirational Photog Interview

Found via MediaStorm

New Media Douchebags

Simplicity from the Muppets

Found via andydickinson.net

Parting Thoughts

The Columbia Journalism Review has set up a place for those that have left or pushed out the door of journalism to reflect. After reading Jim Spencer's piece, I'm looking forward to reading a few more in hopes of finding some solace. Solace in knowing that once I walk out the door of a newspaper in several weeks I'm not alone in feeling like I'm walking away from one of the most important and passionate aspects of my career.

AMEN!! Can this be done last month?

The first notion of reader comments at the bottom of newspaper.com stories I had was it would be a good thing. Maybe people would chime in and figure out a way to solve problems or illuminate other problems. Thus a wiser and stronger community. After watching the constant attacks and childish games in the comments of the Camera, I have to say it's time to pull the plug.

After three comments the story is thrown to the gutter so that only a small number of people scratch, claw and bludgeon each other with poorly chosen words accelerating the downward spiral of humanity. And that's after the really horrific spiteful "comments" are removed by our lone web editor. Once more reason to dump them is not paying someone to babysit the comments.

I guess they didn't learn that lesson from Grandma: "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all."

Pew's stinky report

"Another diminishing skill set, interestingly, is photographers," the report says. "Overall, 31% of newspapers say they have cut back on photographers in the last three years, vs. 12% that had made net increases. At the biggest papers, this trend is more pronounced, with the majority reporting cutbacks on photographers (52%) and just 6% saying they had made net additions."

The underwhelming conclusion of the report is that as papers cut staff so goes the content. BRILLIANT!! Great idea, make a less desirable product for an already shrinking audience. That'll make all those greedy investors happy. I'm sure of it.

Ok, time to go get a tow truck to remove the tongue from my cheek.