E-flections

traditional photojournalism in the form of the ’sunday supplement’ photo essay is under siege: many have seen the web as the saviour of the genre. but does this mean simply transferring an old model into a new medium, or does it need a complete re writing of the rules?

this thought provoking piece by stephen mayes, the new director of photo agency VII, adds to the debate

http://www.rethink-dispatches.com/the-king-is-dead-long-live-the-king.php

he is critical of many of the simplistic multimedia put out so far:

‘It’s time for a complete re-think – it’s simply not enough to animate a slide show with a few graphics and some atmospheric audio.’

and sees the issue not as a lack of news, or of people interested in it, but in a lack of ways to bridge the gap between then in a compelling way:

‘The “crisis” in photojournalism is not an absence of newsworthy events, nor even the absence of an eager audience, it is the absence of imagination in bridging the two, and we are limited by the constant backward hankering for the way things used to be.’

the idea of some ‘objective, truthful observer’ too is long gone:

‘photojournalists need to engage the new audience by recognising their own place in the world and integrating this new self-awareness into their coverage of the world at large. Photojournalists are no longer disembodied observers; in the world of blogs, citizen journalists and hyper information sharing, we are all participants in the affairs of the world and in the reporting of events.’

and his critique of the ‘long tail’ of the web is as true of photography as it is the rest of journalism:

‘The fatal information trap that is built into the Internet is the ability to find people around the world who think like you, and to talk to them to the exclusion of all others; in this aspect the Internet is the antithesis of mass communication and its ability to filter ever-narrower interests is a snare as much as it is a liberation. The challenge is to break out, to find wider audiences and to connect meaningfully. And to do this, new languages must be learned.’

but what is better? reaching a passive mass audience who are only slightly engaged witht he subject, or a small but active one who are actively trying to impact on the situation