The State of News Photography 

The State of News Photography was a series of surveys and reports (2015 - 2018) I managed at the World Press Photo Foundation. I co-authored the 2015 report with Adrian Hadland and Paul Lambert, while the 2016 report was written by Adrian Hadland, Paul Lambert and Camilla Barnett, and the 2018 report was produced by Adrian Hadland and Camilla Barnett.

The reports present information about the world’s professional photographic community, with a special focus the lives and livelihoods of photojournalists in the digital age. It was a research project conducted by the University of Stirling in the UK and the World Press Photo Foundation (and, in 2015, the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism) and was based on a survey of entrants to the World Press Photo Contest.

In 2015 and 2016 the reports focused on survey results from those years. In 2018 the report provided on an overview of the online survey of professional photographers who entered the annual World Press Photo Contest in the four years between 2015 and 2018 and contains new data on the demographics and identities of that population.

While a survey of those photographers who have entered the World Press Photo Contest provides detailed insights into the lives of working photographers, many photographers do not enter the competition for a variety of reasons. As a result, the reports do not claim to represent all photographers or the industry as a whole.

However, detailed responses from 5,202 photographers from more than 100 countries over four years do capture many of the key issues facing people who choose to make a living from photography. The 2018 report summarises some of the key findings, identifying new areas of interest, and reflecting, in particular, on issues of gender and diversity and their impact on the industry going forward.