One of the biggest journalism outfits out there is combining its photography and videography teams into one “Visual Journalist” department according to a report out of PetaPixel.
Just a sign of the times or a dilution of the importance each side contributes to journalism? You tell us in the comments.
Basically, world news organization Reuters has decided to optimize its team that pursues video and photo journalism. The combination mirrors the growing capabilities of a lot of gear out there to do both fairly well but also points to a larger drive to squeeze ever more out of ever fewer people according to some accounts.
This is because, as part of the process, Reuters will be eliminating some jobs.
These aren’t the only changes coming to Reuters – the whole org is undergoing a huge transformation as it becomes a “stand alone” business unit within the larger Thomson Reuters company according to an article in The Baron.
An internal memo from John Pullman said: “In Visuals we will accelerate the moves already underway to create a single unified team of visual journalists…any of our photographers already shoot video – and videographers produce pictures. This mode of working is becoming normal throughout the industry as video and photo technologies grow closer. We will be taking a structured approach to merge our pictures and video teams. We will look at technology, training and workflow – and introduce single leadership where appropriate. We aim to align our teams with the needs of our customers by extending our footprint, improving our efficiency and increasing our flexibility. …We remain fully committed to producing pictures and video of the highest standard.”
As PetaPixel highlights, this is a sad day for Reuters Pictures as that department has won many Pulitzer Prize awards on its own. This reorg basically ends that as an independent concern.