Six photography staff are being made redundant on Newsquest newspapers in Wiltshire and are to be replaced with reporters using smartphones.
Press Gazette understands that two staff photographers will remain working across the daily Swindon Advertiser and paid-for Towbridge-based weeklies, the Wiltshire Times and Gazette and Herald.
Questions remain about how largely-deskbound reporters on the Advertiser and the two weekly titles will find the time to travel and take photographs for stories.
Press Gazette understands that the Advertiser has a reporting staff of six who are already hard-pressed to fill the paper each day covering most stories by telephone.
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According to one source, reporters have been told they will be issued with iPhones and be required to take their own photographs to go with stories.
National Union of Journalists National Executive Council member for the South West Tim Lezard told Press Gazette: “Newspapers think they can get rid of photographers because everybody has got a camera on their phone. But the readers will be missing out because the quality won’t be nearly as good.
“A photographer will take time composing the picture and making sure the light is right. The job is hard enough for reporters as it is without expecting them to take the photographs as well.”
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