Need an unbiased opinion -- is this really where we're headed?

Gannett's doing this stuff at other papers - going to proms, taking photos at clubs - but I think the decision to print girls in bikinis depends on the market. Tallahassee? Why not. Greenville, SC? No way.

 

Shouldn't be doing it at all, is my point. Next thing you know they'll be renting out the photo department as wedding photographers.

 

I'm fine with it. Newsworthy? Maybe. Maybe not. But it is what's happening. Before we all got so caught up in the providing an unbiased persepctive of the day's events, every newsapaper in the country was a voice of what is happening in the community. Just go look at your paper's archives. Yeah, the hard news is out there, but so where the stories that just said stuff like "Old Man Jones was spotted with Carrie Rogers at Sadie Hawkins dance last Wednesday."
The point being, papers rose in the day because, while there was no ther mediums for a while, they told of what was happening in the community.
That's what's happening in the community now. News value? Probably none. But you see party pics, you are gonna click. It will draw the young crowd to your web anyway. Hell just go look at myspace and facebook and see what they are posting on there. No one is clicking on the photos of Hillary Clinton giving a speech.

 

Our paper has started doing a LOT more photo galleries, going out to clubs and snapping shots of locals, going to events and shooting locals. Our publisher feels like pictures and names in pictures, particularly locals, will sell papers, and I'm guessing that's along the same line of thinking with this particular bit.

 

My paper's website has galleries of photos that, if I were looking at them on any other website at work, I could be disciplined for. But hey, it generates clicks, and that's all management cares about.

 

While I don't like the MySpace/Facebook-like aspects of some of the photos, I don't find the images to be very offensive (well, maybe margarita drinker No. 1). Growing up on the Florida coast, you see this kind of stuff. It ain't a big deal.

 

Photo galleries get tons of hits. So yes, this is where we are going.

 

Very true. And if you only have one photo of a girl falling out of her bikini, then you make it the first photo.

You guys working at the Christian Science Monitor or something?

 

A gallery for the sake of a gallery -- i.e., "content" that the majority of us would find to be superficial or gratuitous -- is fine since web sites more or less have unlimited space. The issue there is whether the links and promotion are given dominance rather than prominence on the home page . . . Don't be bumping real news down below the scroll in order to push something vapid.

What I worry about, though, is the resources used in the production of these things. A staff-generated photo gallery of the H.S. baseball game or art gallery opening is fine because we were going out there to shoot for the paper/web site anyway.

But sending a staffer out to shoot one of these 37-image monstrosities doesn't strike me as the best use of manpower. You should be relying on user-submitted photos for these beachfests and other non-event events.

BTW, one other point: The "Buy This Photo" aspect of most galleries is inconsequential. I'm told that few mid-sized papers are pulling down as much as $2,000 a month in photo resales. That's pretty inconsequential if the company's annual operating budget is $50-60 million.

 

What was revealing about those pictures? Your paper doesn't run swimsuit or lingerie ads?

 

Speaking of confederate flags, do any southern states still hold Confederate Memorial Day in high esteem each year?