Shame On You! [telecom]

The same thing happens in the Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Okla.) I think there is a common reason here--it costs money to go out and make their own local photo, while the wire services send them photos as a part of their services, or they can get a photo with a couple of clicks.

Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

I don't believe it. Previous editions of The Inquirer had extensive pictures of Philadelphians on picket lines, and I've never met a photographer who didn't take four times more shots than he needed. They could have taken another of those out of the archives if they were short of images, but I think what _really_ happened was that Verizon's ad agency called up and demanded that the editor get in line.

IMHO, this wa a hatchet job, and I've seen this before. I was on a picket line at Dedham, Massachusetts, and a photographer from the local rag came by and asked us all to line up, and then said he was looking for a "perfect angle" while he snapped away. The photograph that the paper ran showed one of the picketers using the pay phone, which was the shot the photographer had come for: anytime the big money boys want to belittle and taunt common men, they do it by finding an exception and holding it up so that the masses think it's the norm.

Remember that you are not a newspaper's customer: you are its product. Your willingness to believe what a publication tells you and shows you is a valuable commodity which is sold to the highest bidder.

Bill Horne Moderator

I, of course, have no idea what happened in the newsroom of The Inquirer, so I can only guess.

Bill, by "previous editions", do you mean last week or last decade? If you mean last week then I suppose we could follow the money: Verizon buys a lot of ad space in Philly newspapers, someone calls encouraging use of a photo, etc. It could happen.

If you mean last decade then I think Wes' observation holds true. Newsrooms are cut to the bone. It's easier to use a wire photo or a stock photo in place of sending an actual photographer out. I'm something of an airplane geek and it just floors me to read an article about an American Airlines 767 and see a picture of an old (obviously) Eastern Airlines 727 as if it has anything to do with the article. Someone in the newsroom probably did a search for "airplane" and picked the first thing that came up and called it a day.

John

-- John Mayson Austin, Texas, USA

I meant "in the past few days". I did a Google image search for '"Striking workers" Philadelphia Verizon', and I received dozens of images showing workers striking against Verizon on picket lines in Philadelphia, and many, if not most, were from the Inquirer!

The Philadelphia Inquirer did its reader a disservice: if a picture is worth a thousand words, I'd like to send an image of Google headquarters to the owners, with a caption stating "THIS is why you're so desperate that you would compromise nearly two-hundred years of reader trust, and you brought it on yourselves".

Bill Horne Moderator