2008 will go down as “The Year the Newspapers Died.” Publications are in free fall due to dropping circulation and falling advertising. Unfortunately, one of the first places the publisher turns to in order to cut costs is the photo department. We estimate that this year, as many as one third of the membership of The National Press Photographers Association will be out of a job.

While I didn’t see any back-up to that claim, there is some other doom and gloom for photojournalists in this issue.

• I Just Got Laid Off and I Need a Job
• How Not To Do Newspaper Video

Also, Terry Heaton for the Digital Journalist looks at the growth of the citizen journalist.

• Photographers rights for the, the United States.
• Street photographers rights for the, Australia.
• Photographers rights for the, the United Kingdom.
• This is a scary post regarding ads that are running in England, UK Declares War on Street Photographers
• Here is a link to a follow-up post about what is happening in the UK,Photographer’s Rights: One More Time.

One of my all-time favorite podcast, Tips From The Top Floor, also had a segment on the topic of photographer’s rights in a recent show entitled, “Attack of the Killer Cameras.” The show also This is a great podcast that is a fun to listen to and a resource on many photography topics. The host, Chris Marquardt is funny and engaging. It comes to you from the top floor of somewhere in Tubingen, southern Germany.

Or did they?

Earlier this week the New York Times ran a story, “Tension Over Blogging.” In the story, Tim Arango writes, “Tension over sports blogging is one of the strains between sports franchises, leagues and reporters to have emerged during the digital age.”

Funny, the story did little to talk about the sports bloggers that started blogging and the millions of people that turn to blogs for coverage of the sports they love and to interact with the other fans that coalesce around specific blogs. The story didn’t talk about the role of blogs in sports or even journalism. The story also didn’t touch on how the blogs have affected the coverage of sports and the expectations of the readers of the New York Times or your favorite blog, like OffWing Opinion.

Are you asking yourself what the story was about yet? The blogging headline caught our eye
but the story had nothing to do with blogging, the real story is one that has played out in other industries over the past decade, it is about the Internet and it’s affects on an industry, this one being the “sports entertainment industry.” At stake are billions of advertising dollars.

Prior to the Internet only print, radio, and television news organizations had the means to communicate to the masses. Traditional media’s audience have come online and blogging has simplified the process of publishing to the point that quite literally anyone can publish a blog. The larger sports leagues have at the same time been developing their own media delivery platforms, while also securing the “coverage” of the events as a revenue stream. They are now making moves to limit access and coverage of their sporting events so that the public’s eyeballs (and subsequent advertising dollars) return to League and team websites.

The NYT’s article is really about the problems of print journalism in meeting the needs of their viewership. Stories come out everyday about more layoffs at a venerable publication. Management hands out point and shoot cameras to reporters; video cameras and audio recording devices to photographers. Quality drops as both reporters and photographers are asked to do more in less time. Yadda, yadda, yadda…I don’t really want to go down this path right now.

John Harrington also wrote about this topic today in a story, Sports Coverage Blackout – It’s About Time. He also touches on press limits being proposed by high school sport leagues in various places around the country. OffWing Photo also looked at this topic earlier this year and how it was being played out in Arkansas and Illinois.

OffWing and OffWing Photo will continue to cover the events that we are given access to. While our writers can sit in the stands or watch from their living rooms, our video and still images our taken by yours truly and a group of dedicated photographers. We strive to provide quality images that would rival the other photographers covering events, we don’t want to do anything less.

The disservice of all this is to the fans, because your source for information is being limited. OffWing blogs because like you we love our teams and the sports we cover. The limits of our coverage should come down to our capabilities and the desire of our fans. While the big leagues can lock us out, they shouldn’t. We increase the value of their “product” and bring them more eyeballs.

Sorry, I am a hopeless romantic. I root for my home town team, look up to the heroes of my sports, and feel fortunate to share with all of you what I can.

Rah! Go team!

While researching for Game 2 of the NHL’s Eastern Conference quarterfinal series hockey game between the Washington Capitals and the Philadelphia Flyers I was clicking around the Caps website. While there I clicked on a graphic for “Image of the Day.”

A few others (shout out to tai.shar who also frequents our galleries) had found the gallery which includes just one photo per day, really. Nothing more. Well, it is a start. It looks like photographers for the away games are also posting a picture.

For more Cap pictures you can check out OffWing on flickr.

We will be back tomorrow with pictures from game 2. Later.

As a refugee from the heady Internet days and the Telecom mergers there are a few things I have learned after being bought, sold and merged more times than I can recall. First off, what this really means probably won’t get sorted out until later this year or early in 2009. The deal isn’t supposed to close until the second quarter of this year.

Secondly, don’t ever buy the phrase, “we are different, a merger of equals.” I laugh when I hear that one, there is always a buyer and the one being bought. In this case Hellman & Friedman bought Getty, we won’t know what the “New Getty” looks like and how it operates.

Photographer and blogger John Harrington has been following Getty’s moves and photo industry impact over the past couple of years and did some “crystal balling.” Today he posted his insights which on the whole I agree with.

Hang on for another year of big changes in the business of photography.

• Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson
• Photo Business News & Forum
• Photo Monkeys: A Weblog For Photojournalists And Photographers Who Aspire To Greatness
• The Business of Photography
• Photo Allies
• Confessions of a Photographer

Some of these resources are from established photographers and others are from aspiring photographers. They offer a place of community and synergy (sorry for the 90’s term) that is difficult to find elsewhere.
Finally, I have to make a special note of another resource that I have been meaning to follow, but haven’t. Well this week was the week I needed to hear from Franklin McMahon and his Media Artist Secrets’ podcast. Listening to a couple of early installments of his from 2006 got me off my butt and trying some new things which is what surviving all this change requires.