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U.S. News Quits White House Photo Pool, Lays Off More Staff

December 01, 2005

By Daryl Lang

U.S. News & World Report will pull its photographers out of the White House pool at the end of the year, ending a long tradition of rotating daily coverage of the President among the three major newsweeklies.

The struggling magazine also has laid off three of its photo staffers, including New York-based photo editor Sheryl Mendez, digital imaging person Melissa Wiley and traffic/production coordinator Shomari Artis. Mendez was one of seven photo editors at the magazine.

U.S. News director of photography Scot Jahn confirmed the changes in a phone interview Wednesday.

Jahn was promoted to the magazine's top photo job last month following the departure of previous photo director Olivier Picard, who accepted a buyout as part of a cost-cutting move in October. At the time, editor Brian Duffy said the magazine was considering more changes to its photo department.

Jahn says the main reason for pulling out of the press pool is to save money, but it also fits with the magazine's new strategy. U.S. News has been trying to put its resources behind original features and its web site instead of spot news coverage.

U.S. News will continue to dispatch photographers to cover important White House events, Jahn says, but will no longer participate in the pool that requires the magazine to have a photographer on duty even when there's little news happening.

"The White House pool has not really been the most productive way of getting photography for us," Jahn says.

He says pool access has yielded few photos in recent years that the magazine couldn't have gotten through non-pool coverage.

"We don't really get much access from this White House," Jahn says. "It seems like a waste of money for us, frankly."

Under the magazine photo pool, photographers representing the three major newsweeklies -Time, Newsweek and U.S. News - take turns covering the president, with each magazine having a photographer on duty every three days. This ensures a magazine photographer is always near the President, even when space or access is limited. In such cases, the photographers share their images with the other magazines. Photographers from the major wire services also shadow the President.

Jahn acknowledges that withdrawing the pool has some risks. "We're gambling that nothing earth-shattering will happen on a trip we're not covering," he says.

U.S. News has three full-time staff photographers in Washington, Charlie Archambault, Jim Lo Scalzo and Jeff MacMillan, who take turns covering the White House.

Lo Scalzo says he thinks it's a wise decision to pull out of the photo pool because it will give him and the other photographers more time to work on original projects for the magazine.

"Now we're a little more freed up to work on other assignments," Lo Scalzo said today as he was preparing to fly to Texas for a story about the U.S.-Mexico border.

Jahn says one reason it's expensive to participate in the pool is the hefty travel costs. The White House charges "about double business class" for members of the press to travel with the President, Jahn says.

Newsweek director of photography Simon Barnett says Newsweek's coverage of the White House will not decrease. Barnett says it hasn't been determined yet how the new magazine photo pool will work, but that Newsweek will continue to participate in it.

Time photo editors hadn't returned messages from PDN by this morning.

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