The Irish Times - Celebrating 150 Years - Where's the photographer?

Last week the Irish Times celebrated their 150th Anniversary and they undertook a major campaign to promote this fact. The radio ad which ran earlier in the week mentioned some of the journalists who had worked for the paper over the 150 years. At the time I was struck that no mention was made of the photographers and their work. I presumed I had heard only one of a series or that I had misheard the advertisement - after all up to now the Irish Times have always appeared to value the photograph as a essential element in their newspaper. I intended to look at the magazine but life took over and I could only quickly browse the paper and magazine. I planned to look through it at length later this week.

However judging by Tom Lawlor's letter in todays paper they didn't really mark the work of the photographers over the years.

It reads:

Madam, - Shame on Fintan O'Toole for failing to record the great contributions that Irish Times photographers made to the paper (150th Anniversary Magazine March 27th), from the first photographer, George Leech (who was a pilot with the royal flying corps), to the present talented team whose educated eyes have informed and entertained the readers with award winning work. Their job required them to be direct witnesses to political and social events which they gathered in the field and not on bar stools.-

Yours, etc,

TOM LAWLOR,
Vernon Avenue,
Clontarf, Dublin 3.

That'll tell Tom!

Reproduced here with Tom Lawlor's permission.

Comments

[Dominic]

Nothing new there, most magazine/newspaper articles with photos are accompanied by a photo of the journalist along with his or her name in a font size far larger than the photographer gets (if they’re lucky to get a mention at all).
Dominic

[gerryocarroll]

Dear Tom

in slightly similar vein...

The IPPA is 60 this year. But it isn't celebrating. Shhhhh! don't tell anyone, especially the public. It's a secret. Another opportunity lost.

Shame on us photographers!