Four Photographers Among Record Number of Journalists Killed in 2009

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) announced in a report Tuesday that a record 71 journalists had been killed in 2009, 30 in a massacre in Maguindanao, Phillippines, in which 2 media support workers were also slain. The report, “Attacks on the Press: 2009,” also noted that the deaths of an additional 25 journalists were still under investigation to determine if they were work-related.

According to CPJ findings, four of those killed were photographers, while one, Christian Gregorio Poveda Ruiz, had worked as a photojournalist and filmmaker. 52 of those killed were murdered, 37 of which are suspected to have been killed by government officials.

GQ Sells 12,000 Copies of January iPhone Edition

Magazine publishers are eagerly awaiting the announcement of the Apple iSlate reader next week. In the meantime,  Conde Nast has declared a success in its first experiment with selling a magazine to be read on an iPhone.

GQ, one of the first magazines to demonstrate an iPhone app for displaying its issues, has sold about 12,000 downloads of its January issue via the iTunes store. The December issue of GQ sold 6,614, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Each copy sold for $2.99 apiece.

The Journal notes that, after subtracting iTunes' cut of the fees, GQ's iPhone issues have only netted $39,000 in revenue, which is probably less than Anna Wintour's car allowance. Still, the volume of sales is a promising sign that customers will download--and pay for--editorial content they can read on a mobile device. And $2.99 is a lot more than nothing-- which is the price readers have paid to read the GQ.com Web site. 

The Journal notes that the success of the iPhone app has ":given the company confidence that it will be able to port the app to the iPad, or whatever Apple calls the tablet it plans to unveil next week."

(Note: In PDN's February issue, we have interviews with magazine photo editors about how they are assigning photography and video for new digital applications.)

Update: Facebook Reinstates Photographer's "Inappropriate" Ad

Facebook has reinstated the ad created by LA-based photographer Scott Nathan, telling the photographer his ad was “mistakenly disapproved.”

Facebook declined to comment on why the ad had been pulled in the first place, and why they had decided to reinstate the ad. Nathan shot the photograph in question, which features singer Katy Perry posed on a bed in lingerie and heels, for his client Too Faced Cosmetics.

© Scott Nathan

In an email to Nathan, a Facebook ad sales representative wrote: “It appears your ad was mistakenly disapproved. However, it has now been re-reviewed and approved. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

After his ad was taken down, Nathan wrote to Facebook asking for an explanation and posted a message on his Facebook page equating the move with censorship.

The social media site took the ad down two weeks ago, sending Nathan a notice that said the ad violated their guidelines against irrelevant or inappropriate imagery.

Using keywords, Nathan targeted the ad for art buyers, creative directors, photo editors and fashion editors. The text for the ad read: “Scott Nathan Photography: New work up for clients like Katy Perry, Sephora, Lindsay Lohan, Too Faced & Urban Decay Cosmetics.”

Demi Moore’s Lawyer Demands Apology for “Clumsy Photoshop” Charge

Lawyers for Demi Moore have demanded an apology from the photographer who called the W magazine cover shot of the actress a case of sloppy Photoshopping. Photographer Anthony Citrano has posted on his Web site a letter he received via email from lawyer Martin D. Singer of Lavely & Singer (the same Los Angeles law firm that represents Tiger Woods).

The letter states that the W cover wasn’t retouched at all:
“My client’s hips, waist or legs were not altered, retouched, or photoshopped for the cover image. Statements stating the contrary are false and defamatory.”

Along with the letter, Citrano has also posted the attached notes signed by Creative Director Dennis Freedman of W and the photographers who took the cover photo, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, saying, “There was ABSOLUTELY no retouching on her hips or waist or legs!!” 

Citrano says he's sticking by his statement. He says he doesn’t understand what’s “inflammatory” about saying a cover photo of a celebrity was retouched. On his Web site, he writes, “I doubt a single image has graced a major magazine cover in the past decade without being altered in some way. Ms. Moore’s implication that her image went straight from camera to cover is incredible, whether she believes it or not. Simply put, this never happens.”

Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott are known for their celebrity portraiture, and for their fantastical images created in post-production.

 Citrano first noted on the site Boing Boing back in November that on the W cover shot, it appeared that “a clumsy Photoshop artist” had “awkwardly chopped off part of [Moore's] left thigh.” When Moore said on her Twitter posts that the photo was unretouched,  Citrano took the next step to publicize his claim: He offered to pay a $5,000 reward to charity if anyone could produce proof the image was not retouched.   

Citrano tells PDN he received Singer’s letter on Tuesday December 15 from the IP address of Lavely and Singer, and has no reason to doubt its authenticity. “If it's a fake, it's the best fake ever, and the faker gained access to L&S's mail server in order to send the email.” Singer did not respond to PDN’s request for a comment.

The Wall Street Journal Photo Department Under Murdoch

In his Monday New York Times column, media critic David Carr assessed the changes to the Wall Street Journal during its first two years under Rupert Murdoch.

“Under Mr. Murdoch’s leadership, the newspaper is no longer anchored by those deep dives into the boardrooms of American business with quaint stippled portraits," he wrote. Instead, it's shown "a particular interest in politics and big splashy photos.”

Carr’s passing reference to “big splashy photos” appeared to draw a connection between the WSJ and Murdoch’s tabloid publications like the New York Post. Is Murdoch turning the WSJ into a tabloid?

“The good news for photography is that our editor, Robert Thomson, is a very visual person,” says Jack Van Antwerp, the paper's photography director.

The WSJ shoots substantially more original photography than before Murdoch took over. “A lot of the stuff needs to be assigned, because we’re breaking the story or it’s a unique angle on it,” Van Antwerp says.

He and the other photo editors have built a Google maps-based database that allows them to do global searches for freelance photographers.

Is Your Electronic Gear Funding War in Congo?

In the past two weeks, media coverage of a UN report about the funding of rebel groups in the eastern Congo has highlighted the connection between the trade in minerals used to make laptops, cellphones and digital cameras, and the ongoing violence that has killed more than 5 million people.

Articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and elsewhere. A report on CBS's 60 Minutes last Sunday reported that the armed militias terrorizing civilians in eastern Congo are fighting for control of the area's wealth of minerals, such as gold, tin, tantalum (also known as "coltan"), and tungsten which can be used in a variety of electronic devices.

In this month's PDNews article "Would You Switch Digital Cameras If It Could Save Lives?", John  Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, an anti-genocide initiative, describes his organization's campaign to get electronics makers to eliminate so-called "conflict minerals" from their supply chain and offer consumers a way to buy certified "conflict-free" electronics.

Prendergast believes that, just as furor over "blood diamonds" cut off the biggest incentive for fighting in Sierra Leone, Angola and Liberia, consumer demand for "conflict-free" electronics could do more to stop rape, murder and the displacement of civilians in the eastern Congo than peacekeepers have managed to do.

PDN asks Prendergast what hurdles face electronics makers trying to trace the source of their minerals, why Enough Project supports passage of the Congo Conflicts Mineral Act in the US Senate, whether legitimizing the country's mining is enough to solve the country's many problems, and why his organization is targeting electronics companies, rather than other users of tin and tungsten.

When we asked Prendergast which electronics manufacturers have so far been willing to meet with Enough Project and which ones were, in his words, "stiff-arming us," he was cagey.  At this point, he says, the emphasis is on consumer action. "If enough people say, 'Make a conflict-free product and we'll buy it," that's a pretty powerful statement to these companies,'" he says, "I think it's a pretty great opportunity for these companies to get ahead of the issue."

You can read the full interview on PDNOnline  or in our December issue.

If you want to read more about the conflict mineral campaign, you can check out Enough Project's Web site, which is currently hosting multimedia work about the Congo created by photographers with the VII agency.

CPJ Report: Jail a Growing Risk for Freelance Journalists

The Committee to Protect Journalists says the number of freelance journalists now in jail around the world has nearly doubled in the past three years. Of 136 reporters, editors and photojournalists the CPJ found behind bars as of December 1, 60 of them are freelancers.

The CPJ reported the numbers in its annual prison census, which it posted on its Web site today.

The watchdog group attributes the rising number of freelancers behind bars to two factors: the Web has enabled more journalists to work on their own, and major news organizations are relying more on freelancers as they cut costs.

“The days when journalists went off on dangerous assignments knowing they had the full institutional weight of their media organizations behind them are receding into history,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said on the group's Web site. “Today, journalists on the front lines are increasingly working independently. The rise of online journalism has opened the door to a new generation of reporters, but it also means they are vulnerable.”

Last year, the CPJ reported 125 journalists behind bars. China has the most journalists in jail this year, a distinction it has held for more than a decade, the CPJ says. Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma are the other top five jailers of journalists.

The US is on the list of countries holding journalists in jail, for holding freelance photographer Ibrahim Jassam without charge in Iraq. But the CPJ gives the US credit for improving its record in the past two years of detaining journalists without charge or due process.

Tim Hetherington On The Documentary Hybrid

Tim Hetherington began his seminar, “The Documentary Hybrid: Photography & Filmmaking,” this afternoon with a statement he admitted was a little bit strange given the setting: “I’m not interested in photography, I don’t really care for it,” he said.

For those in the audience who knew something of the career of the Vanity Fair contributing photographer, this didn’t come as much of a shock. Hetherington, who is also a filmmaker and artist, says he is interested in finding various forms for his documentary work in an effort to reach as many audiences as possible. As he told PDN for a profile earlier this year, he prefers to be called a photographer-filmmaker.

Rather than talking about photographs or video, Hetherington tended to use the overarching term “images.” At one point during his seminar he even used the verb “imaging” to describe his documentary process, furthering his effort to distance himself and his work from traditional definitions.

How News Works Today: VII Seminar at PPE

This morning at Photo Plus, VII Photo director Stephen Mayes hosted “The New News: Redefining the News Agenda in the 21st Century,” a seminar that illuminated some of the new ways photojournalists are working to reach audiences who get their news not from print but through online channels.

Panelists included photographers and VII co-founders Antonin Kratochvil and Christopher Morris, Daily Beast photography director Katherine Harris and consultant Hanan Gelbedorf.

While many media outlets are talking about how to monetize news and reportage, Mayes noted, the form that news and reportage will take remains undefined.

Mayes said that he has noticed a level of fear among journalists in these uncertain times, and while he acknowledged that change is painful, he is optimistic about the potential for growth that the internet provides the journalism industry and more specifically photojournalism.

If the Journalism Business Fails, Who Pays for Photojournalism

Time magazine pop culture columnist James Poniewozik blogged yesterday about what might happen to journalism if the entire business fails.

"What replaces it? And by that, I mean, who pays for what replaces it?" he wrote [his emphasis]. The post outlined several possibilities for who might create, fund and edit reportage in the future. He concluded his post by writing: "I guess all these ideas boil down to one principle: if journalism—reporting, analysis, communicating, whatever you want to call it—takes time, then someone will have to either pay for or donate that time."

There have been myriad discussions recently about what future models for journalism might look like, but not many mention photojournalists directly. It’s interesting to consider where photography fits into these new business models. Is professional photojournalism more or less susceptible to being undermined by "free" photojournalism created by amateurs, hobbyists or people with other means for supporting themselves?

If the journalism business were to fail, would the void left by professional photojournalists be easier or more difficult to fill than the void left by professional writers? Can the photojournalism business find its own means of sustaining itself separate from the models being discussed for the rest of the journalism industry?