The latest in staff photography lay-offs is a bit of a shocker. A newspaper laying-off staff photographers is one thing, but Sport's Illustrated getting rid of it's staff of photographers?
The images the magazine uses it one of the few things that separate it from the sports section of the local newspaper. Without the iconic images, SI is just another news source. Worse, it's a news source dealing with stale news when compared to the daily newspaper.
SI's plan apparently is to replace the six staff photographers they just fired with freelancers (with the possibility of hiring the laid-off photographers on a freelance basis.) The problem for SI is there is no guarantee that the laid-off photographers will agree to work as freelancers. There is also no guarantee that any other freelancer used by SI will be able to reproduce the quality of the current staffers.
Another problem is that many of the freelancers available will also be producing images used b SI's competitors. The magazine could very well wind up looking like every other sports news outlet.
There is something to be said about branding, and this move could hurt Sports Illustrated's brand.
This could very well prove to be an extremely shortsighted move on the part of Sports Illustrated management.
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