????專業新聞攝影師所掌握的高超技能不僅僅是技術意義上的（這就是為什么他們的照片比記者隨便用拇指點擊iPhone手機抓拍的照片不知道要好多少倍的原因所在），他們還非常善于站位，讓自己處于可以拍攝出好作品的位置上。他們認識警察和消防隊員，市長的公關團隊，還有音樂會和比賽現場的管理人員。就像記者一樣，他們善于利用自己的消息源，知道怎樣讓新聞現場的官員們抬起黃色帶子，放他們進去。

????《芝加哥論壇報》（Chicago Tribune）攝影記者亞歷克斯?加西亞就這起裁員事件發表了一篇言辭刻薄的博文，反問《太陽時報》管理層，你們怎么會認為“把專業攝影師從你們的新聞團隊中剔除出去會有助于你們提供受眾想要的產品呢？”

????破壞工會，或許是一個原因。這家公司在最近一次勞資談判中并沒有提及可能出現的大規模裁員。加西亞懷疑，《太陽報》的如意算盤是，先正式取消攝影師崗位，然后再在“幾個月后”宣布此次裁員是一個錯誤，然后雇用新員工。“這一次，它們是非常不同的崗位——幾乎沒有什么福利可言的兼職工作，”加西亞寫道。

????當然，所有這些都是猜測。另一種可能性是：這家公司正在喪失的資金超出了預期。但它又引出一個問題：這家去年被投資公司Wrapports LLC收購的報業集團去年為什么掏出近300萬美元，收購了陷入困境的《芝加哥讀者周刊》（Chicago Reader ）？最近為什么還打算從論壇公司（Tribune Company）的債權人所有者手中購買資產？

????不過，無論怎樣，此舉都是“管理層的敗筆，而不是什么聰明的權謀之術”，加西亞說。這樣做短期內或許將節省數百萬資金，但與此同時，它揭示出太陽時報公司對讀者群“赤裸裸的無視”。通過擯棄攝影師們“對讀者群所處社區的深厚了解，聯系和信任，《太陽報》向讀者發出了這樣的信號：這份報紙才不關心他們。死亡螺旋由此啟動。”

????沒錯，死亡螺旋。十多年來，對報紙的命運憂心忡忡的人們一直聲稱，報社不能依靠裁員促進業績增長。是的，從過去補貼它的內容（漫畫，咨詢欄目和分類廣告等）中分拆新聞，互聯網對報紙構成了有可能涉及生死存亡的威脅。但降低報紙的質量似乎不像是一個明智的應對之舉。

????這并不是《太陽報》邁向平庸的第一個昏招。盡管名人新聞在互聯網上大行其道，但Wrapports公司去年依然聘請了一堆名人為它的產品（一個名為“Splash”的膚淺之至的網絡和印刷雜志）撰稿。這些名人包括低級情景喜劇明星吉姆?貝魯西、說唱歌手盧普?菲亞斯科和陰謀理論家珍妮?麥卡錫。后者一直堅持認為疫苗導致自閉癥，這種說法已受到強有力的駁斥，早已名譽掃地。這份出版物每24個小時推出一篇“每日珍妮”（Daily Jenny）專欄文章。就在這些人被《太陽報》奉為座上賓之際，以前曾經效力于這份報紙的記者們正坐在失業辦公室的塑料椅子上；在Wrapports公司關閉本地新聞編輯部之后，這家報業公司旗下40家郊區報的記者和編輯們正被迫返回市中心；越來越多的芝加哥新聞無人問津，無人報道。（財富中文網）

????譯者：任文科

????Professional news photographers are not only highly skilled in a technical sense (which is why their photos are so much better than what can be snapped on an iPhone by a ten-thumbed reporter), but they're also highly skilled at getting themselves into positions where they can take great pictures. They know the cops and firefighters, the mayor's public-relations staff, and the management staffs at music and sporting venues. They work their sources just like reporters do, and they know how to get officials on the scene to lift the yellow tape and let them in.

????Alex Garcia, a photojournalist at the rival Chicago Tribune, in his acid blog post about the layoffs, rhetorically asked the Sun-Times management how it could possibly think it could "deliver a product people would want by gutting the visual professionals from your news organization."

????Union-busting, perhaps. The company didn't mention possible mass layoffs during its most recent labor negotiations. Garcia wonders whether the strategy is to formally eliminate the positions of the photographers and then, "months from now," announce that the layoffs were a mistake, and hire new staffers. "This time they're very different positions -- part-time positions, with little if any benefits," Garcia wrote.

????All speculation, of course. Another possibility: The company is losing more money than it had expected. But that raises the question of why the company -- acquired last year by the investment firm Wrapports LLC -- shelled out nearly $3 million to buy the troubled alt-weekly the Chicago Reader last year and why it was recently mulling buying assets from the Tribune Company's creditor-owners.

????No matter what, though, Garcia says the move is "bad management and not smart Machiavellian management." The move will save millions in the short run, but in the meantime it reveals the Sun-Times company's "naked disregard" for its readers. By eliminating the photographers' "deep knowledge, connection and trust to their communities, the Sun-Times has signaled to its readership that it doesn't really care. And so begins the death spiral."

????Yes, death spiral. People worried about the fate of newspapers have been arguing for more than a decade that you can't cut your way to growth. Yes, the Internet, by unbundling news from the stuff that used to subsidize it (comics, advice columns, classified ads, etc.) poses a possibly existential threat to newspapers. But making your product worse doesn't seem like a sensible response to the challenge.

????And this isn't the first move toward the mediocre by the Sun-Times. Despite the fact that the Internet is rife with celebrity news, Wrapports last year hired a bunch of celebrities to write for its "Splash" product -- a web and print magazine that's about as shallow as it gets. The celebs included Jim Belushi, star of sub-par sitcoms; rapper Lupe Fiasco; and conspiracy theorist Jenny McCarthy, whose insistence that vaccines cause autism has been solidly discredited. The publication offers a "Daily Jenny" column every 24 hours. These people were brought on board even as former Sun-Times journalists were sitting in plastic chairs at the unemployment office, as reporters and editors at Wrapports' 40 suburban papers were being forced to commute downtown after the company closed their local newsrooms, and as more and more news was going uncovered in Chicago.