Photography on Purpose

Whew! Taxes finally done I can breath again.
Spent the past Friday through Sunday at the Southern Short Course in Photojournalism seminar. Why? Well, even though I am not a journalist I am interested in taking photographs that tell a story. That makes us kindred spirits in my mind and I figured I could pick up a thing or two from the pros.
It was interesting and I met some really nice interns, working pros, and instructors. It is always a pleasure to meet up with Billy Weeks, Photo Editor for the Chattanooga Times Free Press newspaper. One of the students was kind enough to give me a guided tour of his MacBook Pro. I'm still waffling as a veteran Windows user but I hear Photoshop and Lightroom run fantastic on these machines. I'll tell you - with Parallels running on the MacBook Pro, Mac users have no cause for being envious of any other machine. Nice nice nice! So many toys so few bucks!
I can think of several other things I could put the money to use - I lust after Canon's new 16-35L f2.8. Awesome lens - the Canon reps at the seminar had one I could play with. I'd have to retire my 17-40 if I got one of those.
Anyway - most of the breakout sessions were pretty educational if not entertaining. The only one I was disappointed in was the one titled "Careers in PhotoJournalism - alternate careers". It was anything but. Essentially a bunch of newspaper folks sat at high counsel telling the interns their shall and shall nots to get a job. I was hoping for them to address the impact of blogging and online independent journalism on the news industry in general and alternate sources to market your photos. But noooooo. I gotta say it was an eye-opener to see the interns and students. I can think of no other word than "whipped". I hate to sound negative but these people are in a job field that seems to be ruled by fear and desperation. All I heard was the plaintive wail of students worrying about getting an internship at a paper.
I did manage to have a great conversation with a Korean/American student about that subject - we digressed into whether the online independents had the same "rights" and privileges of an established paper. We have this notion that papers have a right to access news and a press card will get you into a scene where ordinary citizens cannot go. So where do the papers get these special privileges? How does one qualify if not a member of the media establishment?
I think they are interesting questions that deserve an answer. I will grant that these folks have training to do their job and have ethics to ensure they are a trustworthy source of information. Of course that doesn't necessarily address the well known leanings of certain news and media establishments, but it does point out that the media has standards to which they strive to meet or beat. How would an online blogger guarantee those ethical standards? Who will regulate and oversee them?