PBase

... is someone using their Nokia to snap Brittt-ney stuffing her face at a McDonalds or Lindsay passed out in a gutter again.

I doubt that this is the only newspaper in the world where this is happening, but I somehow have doubts that the readership will be the better for it.

At ten past four in the afternoon, Thursday 23rd October 2008, a seismic shift occurred in the photo department at The Sydney Morning Herald. The remaining members of Team ZimmerTM, the elder statesmen of Herald photography, surrounded by their photographic colleagues and a few senior reporters, were farewelled with modest gifts and mudcake. Farewelled alongside them were two of the best sport shooters the world has seen. The Herald had just lost over a century of experience in one fell swoop.

Why are they leaving? Where are they going?

Fairfax has just culled 550 jobs across Australia and New Zealand. These four, among others from photographic, have taken voluntary redundancy... Jon

http://blogs.smh.com.au/photographers/archives/2008/10/vale_team_zimmertm.html?page=fullpage#comments

It's worth taking a look at the article just to see some of the images that they leave behind.

That's not very good news. It feels like the end of an era.

Radio stations in the US are now mere shadows of what they used to be. My local paper, the Chicago Tribune, is turning itself into a high concept, low-content rag even as we speak. In the end, running the media as little corporate profit centers is a great loss to the community. As fragmented as the Internet is, I doubt it can ever replace what local newspapers, radio and TV stations had been.

I keep telling myself that eventually the pendulum will have to start a return swing. Maybe the new administration will undo some of the damage that Ronald Reagan set off with the first round of media deregulation? It would be a boon to society in general.

It is sad. My town had 2 local newspapers..for economic reasons they both shared basic production facilities, yet had very different editorial, journalistic and photo staff. One is now entirely internet based. Both have cut staff now drastically. I agree too about the broadcast media and the sort of fragmentation of it - but centralization at the same time. It is a shadow of what it once was, and a transparent shadow at that. Look at what deregulation of the financial sector has done To me it all has been like a farmer letting foxes guard the chickens.