We mentioned in "Getty Images: No Shots of a Cheap Shot, and Some Wonder Why" the story of Bill Werde in the New York Times: "Getty Images' deal for exclusive marketing rights with National Hockey League is called into question when Getty wire service fails to offer photo of Todd Bertuzzi punching Steve Moore at Vancouver Canucks-Colorado Avalanche game in March."
Bill Werde did it again.
In the New York Times, May 3, 2004: "A Photo Agency's Partnerships Leave Some Editors Uneasy":
"These newsworthy sports events produced some of the most memorable, if grim, photojournalism of the last few years. But the clients of Getty, a growing stock photo agency that also produces a wire service for news organizations, were not offered any photos of the incidents.
To some newspaper editors who have stopped using Getty for sports photography - and even to some who still use Getty - the omissions raised questions about Getty's objectivity. In the last few years, Getty has formed exclusive, lucrative relationships with the professional sports leagues it also covers as a wire service.
Executives of Getty Images, which is based in Seattle, said that in the instances cited, they simply did not have the photos to offer. But Getty's deals have spurred traditional wire services, like Reuters and Agence France-Presse, to make agreements to better commercially market their images, raising broader questions about ethics in photojournalism.
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At the National Press Photographers Association, the ethics guidelines have not been updated in more than 50 years - predating not only digital imagery, but television as a news medium. Still, John Long, the association's ethics chairman, expressed concern about the idea of a profit-driven wire service like Getty Images. "When you get into this business strictly for profit," Mr. Long said, "you run into the potential for a conflict of interest. At The Associated Press, for example, their primary purpose in life is to provide fair and accurate information. Of course, A.P. isn't profit-making."
Getty certainly is. About 10 percent of its revenue is generated by editorial sales. In 2003, revenue grew 13 percent, to $523.2 million, from $463 million the year before, and profit nearly tripled, increasing to $64 million from $21.5 million.
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Indeed, while the Reuters-Corbis partnership does not yet offer any relationships with news sources similar to Getty's, in a February release, Corbis and Reuters specifically mentioned sports leagues as a target of their revenue-sharing arrangement.
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"The leagues have tended to give spots to legitimate news organizations," said Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of The Associated Press. "I think the direction you're seeing," she said, "is organizations' seeking to buy access they couldn't get through their news-gathering prowess. I'd be concerned that if the net-cam caught something that was unpleasant to the N.H.L., we'd have a hard time getting the photos. I look forward to being wrong."
[Read the full NYT report of Bill Werde] [Link via APAD and InteractiveNarratives.org]
