The mind boggles

[imageplotter]

Those of us who submit news images - we've all done it at some stage, accidentally filed an image into the news feed that wasn't meant to be filed. It happens, especially when you're sitting somewhere on a wet pavement in the dark, shivering, trying to get a 4g signal, or when the light is so harsh that you cannot see your screen, are tired from long hours with heavy gear on your back. Equally, mixing up captions, headings or accidentally deleting them does happen.  I'm definitely an offender there. And I am sorry about that. However, I do my absolute best to try and limit these accidents.

 

But when it happens 3x on 3 different occasions, and the contributor has only submitted 3 images in total, then you've got to ask yourself if there is any QC at all now on the news feed.

 

To clarify, I don't blame the news desk. They are lovely people, but clearly very stretched on resource. It does not seem like they receive the support they deserve to run the desk efficiently. And with news images in their thousands now submitted every day from every corner of the world, it seems that it is now quantity over quality at any cost. 

 

Personally, it demotivates me even further. I know there are those who argue that the pics that matter are sent out to clients directly anyway. Yes. But this is the storefront, it's a public interface and people do take a look. Yes, even picture editors.

 

Today's image is this one (single image upload, no caption or heading, the other two uploads were Dec 11 and Dec 7, both times also single image uploads, and 2 out of three have the date in the image)

https://www.alamy.com/image-details-popup.asp?pv=1&stamp=2&liveData=1&imageid=26F463D7-B2E5-494F-8A2E-6378704CF815&p=undefined&n=undefined&imageType=0&orientation=0&pn=1&searchtype=0&srch=foo%3dbar%26qt%3d%26aoa%3d1%26news%3d%26sports%3d%26entmt%3d%26Videos%3d%26bb%3d1%26md%3dOL7485638%26dt%3d%26gid%3d{8C27A553-4606-42A1-9608-977A82B85E01}%26destxml%3d%26imglst%3d%26orderby%3dDT%26newsseq%3d%26userid%3d%26rand%3d1544949650525  

[Avpics]

Yes, totally agree that there needs to be some kind of action taken against offenders especially given the frequency. There's rarely a time when the first page of Live News isn't blighted with multiple single images from a contributor that hasn't entered the data correctly.

[John Richmond]

Absent the normal QC procedure for Live News images perhaps Alamy should institute a different test.  An IQ test perhaps.

[IanDavidson]

1 hour ago, imageplotter said:

Those of us who submit news images - we've all done it at some stage, accidentally filed an image into the news feed that wasn't meant to be filed. It happens, especially when you're sitting somewhere on a wet pavement in the dark, shivering, trying to get a 4g signal, or when the light is so harsh that you cannot see your screen, are tired from long hours with heavy gear on your back. Equally, mixing up captions, headings or accidentally deleting them does happen.  I'm definitely an offender there. And I am sorry about that. However, I do my absolute best to try and limit these accidents.

 

I loved your description.  The quote fits about 90% of my working life!  However, I have great admiration for the news team.  Last week I was in Downing Street, being very pleased having got good pictures of the PM announcing her position on the no confidence vote.  (Due to the short notice there were few still photographers there and I was one of the last before “lockdown”)I then took pictures of her leaving 10 Downing Street for PMQ,s. Unbeknownst to me I had knocked a focus switch on my lens.  I hurriedly filed, cold, wet, on the pavement with an intermittent 4g signal on my mifi,  I almost immediately realised that the shots were slightly out of focus.  However, the news team did notice and pulled the images, for which I thank them.  The nature of live news is such that errors will occur.  In terms of quality, the news team will only send out good quality (not always best quality pictures but the most newsworthy.). I am told by those with many more years experience than me an including an ex picture editor that it is not normal for the news feed to be searched by the nationals etc.  I don’t know but the final backstop is the customer....

 

i sometimes wish Downing Street would provide the same facilities as The White House, (minus The Donald). For photographers.  Or at least a toilet for those of us standing around in the cold and wet for five or six hours.

 

A very merry Christmas to the Live NewsTeam... and to you all (Bah humbug) 2019 is looking challenging!  

[Bryan]

Wasn't there once a requirement that a contributor had to have a successful track record before they could access live news,  or is that a figment of my imagination? I don't understand how a contributor with only 3 images could upload to news.

[Starsphinx]

I know at another place there is a specific mention of not using their editorial simply to bypass the rules on RF.  This thread strikes me as suggesting that Alamy need to make it specific that live news cannot be used simply to bypass quality rules on images and any offender found trying to do so will get restrictions put on their account - including possibly a ban on using live news at all.  That cat picture would not even have made into my editing pile.

[Sally]

If you send inappropriate images to Live News you get an email which is pretty strongly worded to the effect that if you do it again, your ability to access Live News will be ended. I know, because my first attempt at news (a rainy picture) didn’t cut it. Luckily, I have got better at knowing what is news and what isn’t.

[Vincent Lowe]

Just a thought - maybe they were uploaded by alamy staff to test something.

[Starsphinx]

3 minutes ago, Vincent Lowe said:

Just a thought - maybe they were uploaded by alamy staff to test something.

Then why are they showing front end? 

With respect I do build my own website rather than using a service, and there are a huge number of ways to test things without the customer ever seeing or being aware of what is happening - hell for something Alamys size I would expect them to have a separate server with a full test installation on it.  

[MDM]

Could this be the world famous Thomas Ponce, 17 year old animal rights activist from Florida? Never heard of him you say - no nor did I until 5 minutes ago but he comes up tops on any Google search for Thomas Ponce. Just a theory. Could be another Thomas Ponce. Whichever Thomas Ponce he is, how his images got on to Live News uncaptioned remains a mystery. 

[imageplotter]

22 hours ago, John Richmond said:

Absent the normal QC procedure for Live News images perhaps Alamy should institute a different test.  An IQ test perhaps.

 ...I'm not sure I'd pass that one.  

[imageplotter]

22 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

 

 

i sometimes wish Downing Street would provide the same facilities as The White House, (minus The Donald). For photographers.  Or at least a toilet for those of us standing around in the cold and wet for five or six hours.

 

and a Dreamies dispenser

[IanDavidson]

1 hour ago, imageplotter said:

and a Dreamies dispenser

Absolutely.  I did not know you were also a Downing Street tog.  Say hullo next time you see me there!  My last trip of the year will be tomorrow for cabinet sadly this means getting up at 5.30am....  I will remember to check my lens switches this time....  

 

on the topic, I have to say those cat images are odd.  But, I guess there will be times when the news team is flooded with images.  On our beat there are at least five regular Alamy shooters in the Downing Street pack.  So there must be a lot of images hitting the desk after events.

[Alamy]

Hi everyone

 

Just to explain how our News team work. The News desk is actively manned during the hours that the picture desks for the newspapers are manned (we also have extra cover during big events and somebody available at all times on the phone for breaking news). When a member of the News team sees images that shouldn’t be in the feed because of poor quality or lack of caption and so on they’ll remove it as soon as possible. They’re priority will be to push out good images to the newspapers, so there might be a delay in removing any unsuitable images whilst this is being done.

 

Thanks

Alamy

     

[imageplotter]

2 hours ago, IanDavidson said:

Absolutely.  I did not know you were also a Downing Street tog.  Say hullo next time you see me there!  My last trip of the year will be tomorrow for cabinet sadly this means getting up at 5.30am....  I will remember to check my lens switches this time....  

 

on the topic, I have to say those cat images are odd.  But, I guess there will be times when the news team is flooded with images.  On our beat there are at least five regular Alamy shooters in the Downing Street pack.  So there must be a lot of images hitting the desk after events.

 

I rarely go into DS, too crowded for me, to hard to get a 'different' shot, and the wire agencies too fast.   But I'll definitely say hello if I see you on the Green/elsewhere in Westminster. I'm the blonde chatty one, can't miss me, haha.

 

[imageplotter]

7 hours ago, Alamy said:

Hi everyone

 

Just to explain how our News team work. The News desk is actively manned during the hours that the picture desks for the newspapers are manned (we also have extra cover during big events and somebody available at all times on the phone for breaking news). When a member of the News team sees images that shouldn’t be in the feed because of poor quality or lack of caption and so on they’ll remove it as soon as possible. They’re priority will be to push out good images to the newspapers, so there might be a delay in removing any unsuitable images whilst this is being done.

 

Thanks

Alamy

     

 

Thanks for the response, that is all fair enough. And as I said, it isn't criticism of the news team. 

 

But it doesn't explain why there are now quite a few contributors joining directly into the news image route without previous other images, and when submitted images on the first upload do not appear to conform with QC standards for either news or stock. There are a good few other examples of contributors who have joined that way. So sadly, the response does little to to convince me that there isn't a drive from senior management to just procure any sort of images, no matter what. I find that incredibly sad.

[Bryan]

Another stupid red arrow, can't understand why. Maybe it's an  age thing (I'm old ) but I don't hold with it.  

 

If you disagree with a point feel free to express your views, but please don't hide behind this anonymous method of denigrating the contributor.

 

 

[TABan]

On 12/17/2018 at 14:58, imageplotter said:

 

Thanks for the response, that is all fair enough. And as I said, it isn't criticism of the news team. 

 

But it doesn't explain why there are now quite a few contributors joining directly into the news image route without previous other images, and when submitted images on the first upload do not appear to conform with QC standards for either news or stock. There are a good few other examples of contributors who have joined that way. So sadly, the response does little to to convince me that there isn't a drive from senior management to just procure any sort of images, no matter what. I find that incredibly sad.

 

Can new Alamy photographers submit News images? It’s been so long I don’t remember. It seems to me that News should be off limits until you show you can get several submissions through stock QC. I think Alamy News has an email address, so folks not yet accepted might be able to send images there if they’ve got something really good.

[dmj]

On 20/12/2018 at 16:04, TABan said:

 

Can new Alamy photographers submit News images? It’s been so long I don’t remember. It seems to me that News should be off limits until you show you can get several submissions through stock QC. I think Alamy News has an email address, so folks not yet accepted might be able to send images there if they’ve got something really good.

When I joined 4 years ago you didn’t have access automatically and had to request access with a reason.

[Sally]

1 hour ago, dmj said:

When I joined 4 years ago you didn’t have access automatically and had to request access with a reason.

Yes, AFAIK it changed not that long ago and anyone can send news images.