Can photojournalism survive? WPPh winners past and present speak out

For famous photojournalist Sir Don McCullin, the landscape has changed irreconcilably since the days when dozens of printed pages were dedicated to his photo stories, leading him to declare: "Photojournalism is dying. Young people are being encouraged to go into photojournalism and there's no outlet for it – newspapers and magazines are much more interested in the wealthy, the glamorous and celebrities. They don't want suffering people in their newspapers. It doesn't make money for proprietors. Photojournalism hasn't lost its way but it's been conveniently pushed aside."

We spoke to photojournalists and influencers working across the industry about the state of affairs today, and asked their opinions about the future of photojournalism in the digital age.

Larry Towell

"I would say there have always been too many photographs in the world, but there have never been too many good ones. But even for those of us who are working on issues that are socially engaging, it's hard to find an audience – I think part of it is there are too many distractions.

"I didn't decide to become a photographer, it just happened. I wanted to be a storyteller, and I wanted to engage with human rights violations and be a reporter. The fact that nobody's listening doesn't mean you stop. In fact, the opposite is true. The fact that nobody is listening means you have to do more, and you never stop.

"Celebrity culture is a disease, actually. Wanting to be famous is a mental illness, and we don't recognise that. And now it's become pretty much endemic, where even photographers are supposed to be celebrities rather than journalists. Of course it's dangerous."

Ilvy Njiokiktjien

"Assignments have changed, so people are not necessarily going to send you somewhere for months to work on one project. In general, if you want to work on long-term projects, you have to invest money yourself as well.

"When Don McCullin's pictures were making it into the newspapers, his images would be the news. Now if I take a picture at Nelson Mandela's funeral, for instance, there are 300 other photographers there. There are so many images that you are never going to really shoot an iconic image. That's changed a lot. You're not the only one shooting – there are your colleagues, and there are people with phones.

"I don't think a single image will ever lose its power. Single images, to me, are so strong – I can look at a single image and never forget it. But there are new ways of storytelling – with phones, with interactive online experiences and virtual reality – so it's important to see what matches the story."

Jérôme Sessini

"I think now we are freer than before. Firstly because of technology and, secondly, because the young photographers and myself, we don't care about the newspapers like people did before. We got free from the newspapers, so we are able to tell stories in the way we want to tell them.

"One of the dangers is that now photographers are targets in conflict. And I feel that if I fear, I cannot do my job properly.

"I totally believe in the stories – I'm always thinking, 'tell a story', not get one single picture. I don't try to give explanations with photography because it can't tell you everything. It can translate emotions – I believe more in emotions than in rationality. I don't want to tell them, 'this is like this', or 'like that'. I want them to first feel something, and then hopefully they will ask some questions. They will have to find the answers by themselves."

Magnus Wennman

"When I started, press photography was a pretty old-school profession, but today it's completely different. It's not about the technique any more, it's about telling stories, and you have endless opportunities to tell stories today. If you're a photographer who used to just sit at the newspaper office and wait for jobs to fall into your lap, that's dying. But if you work with storytelling, I would say the future is very bright.

"Because there are not that many staff jobs any more, photojournalism is more democratic – everybody can do it, not only people who work at newspapers.

"Today you also have the possibility to choose if you want to do a visual story, a video, sound, or if you want to write the story. The new generation of photojournalists will work in a completely different way to the old photojournalists. They know the possibilities of working with social media and are not locked into only stills photography. As you see everywhere, visual storytelling is getting more and more important – if you're good at that, you're going to survive."

Tom Jenkins

"Photojournalism is not breathing very well at the moment, I would have to say. Technology and the digital age have been like a seismic shock for photojournalism; everyone's got a phone; everyone's taking pictures; everyone sees themselves as a photographer now. This has made a massive difference to photojournalism.

"Because the markets are now absolutely flooded with images, prices have come right down, so the amount that you get paid for an image online now is tiny. Newspapers can access photographs from so many different areas now that it's really affected the way they employ and use photographers – there are fewer staff photographers, and the amount that photographers are getting paid is going down, especially in editorial photography and sports photography. 

"To make a worthwhile living out of it, you've got to think of different ways of financing yourself, so you might do some commercial work to enable you to go off to photograph the refugee crisis for a month or so."

Daniel Etter

"For a long time now, a lot of people have been declaring that photojournalism is dead and, somehow, it's still around. It's still alive, and it's still kicking – maybe not quite as hard as in Don McCullin's days, but it's still important. It doesn't have the impact it once did, and it will never have that impact again. That's because it's been, if not replaced, then at least augmented by other technologies. I think photography will always play a role but if there are better ways of telling visual stories, I'm fine with that.

"The biggest challenge we are facing is the struggle to be believed. Look at how really basic facts are in question nowadays. To navigate in that environment, and to struggle to be trusted and to be taken as a reliable source of information, is our biggest challenge. I haven't figured out a way to make news more trustworthy – the only thing we can do is good work. That means doing research, asking the right questions, and trying to represent events in a fair way."