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A report from The Baron, an independent website dedicated to sharing news and information about Reuters, says Reuters is speeding up the process of merging its picture and video news departments into a single team of ‘visual journalists’ while at the same time making cuts to the number of jobs within the organization.
According to The Baron report, in an internal message to Reuters staff, John Pullman, global head of visuals at Reuters, said ‘In Visuals we will accelerate the moves already underway to create a single unified team of visual journalists […] Many 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.’
The Baron reports the internal memo goes on to say ‘We aim to align our teams with the needs of our customers by extending our footprint, improving our efficiency and increasing our flexibility.’
According to the referenced memo, Pullman said the changes, which come as part of the reorganization as a separate business under the Thomson Reuters umbrella, will take place over the coming months. Unsurprisingly, the homogenization isn’t going over to well with Reuters staff.
A Reuters employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to The Baron, said ‘This is essentially the end of Reuters Pictures, going down the tubes in a very sad way. Pix has won a score of Pulitzers and other prestigious awards under Reuters but it seems that is not enough to save it from what appears to be the terrible end of what was a great run over more than 30 years which brought the world some of the best photojournalism it has ever seen.’
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
