Once upon a Time There Was Photojournalism

When talking about photojournalism, we cannot help but remember the images which contributed to creating our visual historical memory: the child harmed by napalm in Vietnam, the student in Tiananmen Square standing in front of the tanks, or the survivors of 9/11 covered in a shroud of powder.

We live in an age which is saturated with images, with a constantly expanding market (it is estimated that in 2013 the digital photo market will come close to 213 billion dollars), and yet paradoxically photographs seem to have become background noise. Photographic language in daily newspapers and magazines has been confined to simple characters, illustrations or space-fillers. Less frequently, editors will assume the risk of investing in the production of new photo reportage, since the web allows us to access an enormous database of images whose costs are a joke. According to the research study, The Commoditization of Images: The Changing Landscape of Photojournalism, the fact that some of the most important agencies have closed over the last few years (Gamma, Sygma, bought by Corbis, L'Oeil Public, Grazia Neri), competition from an increasing number of amateur photographers, and the spread of stock sites and royalty free offers (where one is able to buy an image for an infinite number of uses for less than 50 euro) have caused experts in the sector to sing the "de profundis" (psalm of penitence) with respect to the photojournalism profession, while they report that the visual information offered to readers is progressively worse in terms of quality. The state of crisis in the market for informational photography is generalized at the international level and is the result of changes that registered in the 90's, when the technological standard moved to digital technology. While digital technology has both increased image production and beaten down development timeframes and costs, internet has also encouraged the speed of circulation. At the same time, the market has seen the birth of new kinds of online intermediaries like Getty, Corbis and Jupiter, which have progressively bought control of the market by offering images at competitive prices and taking over some of the most important traditional agencies. During the twentieth century, agencies played a fundamental role not only in intermediation between photographers and editors, but also in guaranteeing the quality of photojournalistic services. The editorial crisis then added another element to the story: a decrease in readers, the collapse of the press' economic support base (classified ads) and the growing role of digital journalism as the main source of information all contributed to justifying the cuts which editorial teams made on staff photographers and on new reportage production. The questions which arise from such transformations are at the center of the debate about the future of photojournalism and more in general about traditional media: what will substitute all that we are losing? Will new information media guarantee that the iconographic content offered is reliable? Are photographic agencies still valid intermediaries or can that role be carried out by new technologies on the web?

In order to survive agencies have tried to adapt themselves, sparking a price war which has brought about an increasing lower investment in the production of new photographic content. After some agencies closed their doors several alternatives have begun to sprout, which could represent the new economic model for photojournalism in the twenty-first century. These include the birth of photographic collectives, crowdfunding (financing through micro-donations), and financing offered by non-profits. So maybe it is time that we ask ourselves this question: Is photojournalism dead?