But I’d say to you, Therese, what I said to Keith: What’s the option? If you were John Fahey, what would you do to address the serious challenges that face NGS?

The story isn’t over yet. …

Your analysis is pretty accurate — although the challenge is to figure out how NGS can survive when print media is in a death spiral. Without some profit, without eyeballs, how will NGS pay the electric bill? meet payroll? support its various Mission programs?

As I’ve argued elsewhere on this site, the challenge is to (a) articulate what makes NGS a Society, (b) acknowledge that photojournalism’s center of gravity has shifted forever, and (c) leverage the power of the 4+ million people who are still paying annual dues to belong to the Society. If we did that, then there are real opportunities ahead.

While you say the “only recourse is to distance one’s self from them entirely,” I encourage you to stay engaged — and to do what you can to make it the Society you want it to be. In the end, the Society doesn’t “belong” to the Board, to John Fahey, to stockholders (there are none)… to anyone, really. Your voice — esp if it could be aggregated with many others — could nudge NGS in a new, and better, direction.

Thanks for stopping by… and for your comments.

Imagine working at NG when it wasn’t all about the bottom line—money. There was a time when, not only the employees but the management (from the mid-level all the way up to the CEO and BOD), really cared about the product. Now, divisional budgets are slashed to meet the bottom line, and bonuses and perks for those in many management positions. Quality is not what it used to be, no matter what media hype you hear. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors. The fact that NG Channel’s major owner is Rupert Murdoch says it all.

So there really are no mysteries in the world; you just have to do your fact-finding, and connect the dots. When you get to the bottom of it, it’s just the Wizard of Oz, manipulating the levers and dials. I deeply miss the time of my youth when I did not know this.

At the same time that Hewlett Packard is deciding to jettison its PC-making business, by which it is largely known to the world, to focus on business software, it makes me wonder just what kind of hubris it takes to lead a large and reputable organization to ruin, and what kind of perspective-less people are sitting on the boards of these organizations. 

I shouldn’t say perspective-less; it’s just that it’s never been so nakedly obvious that the perspective is all about the bottom line, the dollars and cents. For a commercial enterprise, it’s one thing, and only history will tell us whether I’m right or Mr. Apotheker is right about the best course for HP. But for an educational and inspirational organization like what NGS used to be, to change it in the ways that it’s being changed are just such a shock to the system that the only recourse is to distance one’s self from them entirely.