A snapshot of a decimated photography staff
A.H. Belo has failed to adequately invest in The Dallas Morning News’ photojournalists
Award-winning photographers with The Dallas Morning News have captured the pain of war in Iraq and the jubilance of the Olympic Games. They’ve put their safety at risk this past year to cover a global pandemic and a historic freeze.
Yet over the past two decades, A.H Belo management has decimated their ranks.
Since 2005 — the last year The Morning News’ photography team was honored with a Pulitzer Prize, for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina — the number of staff photojournalists has dropped from 35 to six.
An analysis by the Dallas News Guild reveals the extent to which management has become reliant on freelancers to fill in the holes they created on the visuals team.
The assignment load on staff photographers increased 43% compared to 2005 — with a staggering 41% increase from 2015 to 2020.
At the same time, the percentage of work outsourced to freelancers increased from 17% of assignments in 2005 to 29% in 2020 and is on pace to reach nearly 40% this year.
The photo team’s work is invaluable. During the COVID-19 crisis, when company management was able to work from home, they strapped on N95s and stayed on the streets, searching for creative and impactful ways to capture the story of a lifetime.
They took searing photos of the food lines at Fair Park. They brought readers inside Parkland Memorial Hospital’s COVID unit. They artfully captured what life was like behind masks, 6 feet apart.
We also relied on our photojournalists for the constant coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests after the murder of George Floyd this summer. Each person on the photo team worked overtime, pushing through tear gas to capture compelling images for our readers. One photographer continued taking photos even after being hit with a non-lethal round.
When the winter storm hit, they once again risked their safety to bring back images of families huddled together for warmth, of dangerous roads blanketed in snow and ice for almost a week.
Throughout all of this dangerous and crucial coverage, the team’s numbers dwindled even more: they lost two staff photographers in 2020, and the entire three-person video department dissolved when each videographer found higher paying work in corporate sector positions. None of these positions were replaced.
The company has failed to assign appropriate value to the work of this team, but the Guild is fighting to protect their proud and honored history. Our first contract will lay the groundwork for this team to be built back up, even stronger than before.
This starts with our jurisdiction section. The language we're proposing to the company would limit its ability to subcontract work that should be performed by staff photographers. We are presenting this section at the bargaining table this week, and 100 members of the Guild have signed a petition signaling their support for this issue.
We’re united in support of our photojournalists.
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The Dallas Morning News is part of the oldest continuously operated business in Texas and the state’s leading newspaper. Proudly, we are the first major newspaper newsroom in the state to unionize in the modern era.
The Dallas News Guild covers more than 130 journalists across all departments of the newsroom, including reporters, columnists, data journalists, copy editors, librarians, web producers, audio producers, page designers, photographers and videographers. Eligible newsroom workers voted in October by a margin of over 75% to form a union.
Keep up with our bargaining efforts on Instagram and Twitter — @DallasNewsGuild — and at the NEWS tab at DallasNewsGuild.org.
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