There’s a reason why the Daily Mail has traditionally paid its staff relatively well – and it’s not because it’s a benevolent employer.

Reporters know that in working for the Mail you hand over a little piece of your soul when you file your copy.

The deal acknowledges that any vaguely sentient newsgatherer knows it is odd, at best, to ignore the otherwise newsworthy ambitions and achievements of whole sections of society.

As Nick Davies discusses in Flat Earth News, the editorial line has a corrosive effect on the kind of journalism its journalists practise. But you take your poison, or you move on.

The same can not be said for the Guardian. Like the BBC, the desire to work there for many is cultural and political, as well as journalistic.

In recent years, however, GMG management has been chipping away at the group’s founding public service ethos that is not just important to journalists on the left, but also a vital part of a diverse and free press.

Journalists and readers in Manchester, for example, rightly wonder how “a sense of duty to the reader and the community” is best served by closing local offices and cutting jobs, while handing out massive executive bonuses.

It is also difficult to see how anyone could seriously contemplate closing down the country’s oldest Sunday newspaper or turning it into an irrelevant mid-week magazine.

The possibility that this is a softening-up exercise to push through further cuts in London is as disgraceful as it is worrying for the future of the Guardian and the Observer.

Amid all this controversy, management is busy attacking the creative rights of photographers by saying it will no longer pay to re-use images.

As photojournalist and NUJ Left member Jonathan Warren says on his blog – in a post linking the issue to the Guardian’s appeal for free Flickr images of the London Climate Camp – “photographers rely on reuse fees to earn a living”.

The timing of ‘Flickr-gate’ could not be better. Or worse. Photographers will be protesting against the rights grab outside the Guardian offices in York Way, London, at 9.30am on Tuesday 1 September.

Some freelance photographers have already said they will boycott the Guardian until it negotiates a new deal.

And if the bosses don’t get back to their roots with some “honesty, integrity and fairness” soon, other journalists and readers could well follow suit.

It is highly unlikely the Mail will benefit from this. But the Guardian, as a newspaper and a group, will certainly suffer.

Posted by Rich Simcox

Tags: Climate Camp, cuts, job cuts, journalism, Photography, protest, Scott Trust