Penis ennui

Reporting on the activities of your own media organisation is very hot at the moment. But just like the three-year-old newly fascinated by their gender, media groups reporting on themselves are never an edifying sight.

First there was the BBC and its apologies and unbearably dull self-loathing. Which consequently sent me into a spiral of self-loathing. For example, why am I paying for self-reverential, navel-mining bollocks from Beeb Bertrams emoting to one another about 'trust'? Back-to-back, corporation-wide introspectives where producers compete to broadcast the bigger mea maxima culpa session are more damaging to Auntie Beeb than anything anyone actually did.

To sum up - I trust the BBC. But I know it's fallible. Only the guilt-ridden troupe of ex-Footlights fops who lead this organisation ever believed they were incapable of mistakes. I'm still just about listening to the BBC, but only because of the World Service.

So, just to be clear, I'm not interested in media self-flagellation. Or in compromised media trying to objectively discuss itself (thereby presenting itself on a platter to itself and so committing a vomit-inducing act of autophagia.). That's why I almost ignored the Independent News & Media reporting about itself.

The (IN&M-owned) Sunday Tribune reports that reporters at (IN&M-owned) Drogheda Independent Group have agreed to take photographs as part of their job. Haven’t seen anything in the (IN&M-owned) Belfast Telegraph yet.

So to the reason why they're expanding the job spec for hacks. Blah, blah, flexibility, blah, blah, choice… But definitely not fewer staff and overheads?

Regional chief executive, Ger Walsh said: "Anyone can take an acceptable picture these days and there is technology on the camera itself and in the production process that can do anything to improve the quality of a photo. It would be particularly useful where reporters are able to arrive at the scene of an incident before the photographer can."

That's a reasonable argument if you're sending Martha Gelhorn to Finland, but does it carry much weight otherwise?

Not unexpectedly, one freelance photographer doesn't think so. "People are so disgusted and dismayed that we have been asking ourselves what is the point of being a member of the NUJ. They've sold us out."

But wait, the NUJ have come to the rescue! NUJ's Irish secretary Seamus Dooley said: "I can't accept responsibility for technological change. We have to strike a balance between embracing change and controlling it or having it thrust upon us."

Erm… not quite the robust defence I was expecting. The NUJ are clever people and it isn't difficult to work out what the likely implications of rolling over might be. So why did they do it?

The NUJ website refers to a 15-month-old campaign that I had absolutely no idea existed in the first place. What were the results of the Journalism Matters campaign? Is it concluded? A successful conclusion for the campaign would be for journalism jobs to be safeguarded. How do you measure that? Can the NUJ quantify the jobs it safeguarded? Will the NUJ save jobs on picture desks? How will it safeguard jobs for freelance photography?

Journalism was always a profession consumed with a Biblical sense of its own importance. But its imperfections are legion. Uniquely, it's a place where stupidity and genius compete on equal terms. Genius doesn’t always win (as anyone who's read the Sunday Life's 'She's Sinead' column will tell you). But it's also a place where massively profitable media groups compete and are driven by balance sheets and to defend executive bonuses. So I recognise things are complicated, but first-principles exist to provide clarity.

So what's going on inside Independent News & Media? Will David Gordon launch another of his fearless forays into how the expenses of the Bel Tel picture desk stack up? Or what about Tony O'Reilly's expenses? And while we're at it, can the decision to publish that unreadable syndicated Robert Fisk article, as compared to the insightful one full of local flavour by Malachy O'Doherty, be simply based on economics? If it is, then boy oh boy do we have problems.

This is big stuff. This has massive implications for the preservation of the standards, ethics and professionalism of journalism. It's now thought good enough to take 'acceptable' pictures. Photoshop does the rest. Is that full, proper and honest reportage? Will IN&M not be misleading its readers if photoshop is routinely reconstructing/deconstructing the actualite of (crappy) pics from unqualified hacks?

I recall recently the BBC's Martin Cassidy doing set up for an interview. He's a news journalist. Oh, and he also happened to be the cameraman and the sound engineer. Martin's good at what he does. But are the Beeb's high ideals of quality not ever-so compromised by removing dedicated technicians from the news gathering process?

While the BBC, ITN and Sky go chasing unpaid 'citizen reporters' fortunate enough to have camera phones whilst being unfortunate enough to be near disaster sites (jackpot!), cutbacks are being made elsewhere.

Journalism isn't a sexy topic as people generally are sceptical/suspicious. Some people dismiss journalism as filled full of failed authors, would-be lawyers and should-a-been teachers - typically guys in school garage bands who carried an instrument but refused to play a note - who found themselves a profession without working for a living. Bollocks. It's a truly vital industry and I'm not best pleased with the direction its going and the inability of its chapels to react. This is important. Is journalism principally a business or a profession? Should it be driven by digital technology and advertising, or by reporting and principles? Maybe I'm doing a Bertram and emoting too hard - has IN&M done anything wrong?