Rion Nakaya is an amazing photographer whose work I have followed online for years. She was published in the very first issue of JPG Magazine and her perspective on the current JPG Magazine situation is very much worth reading.
When you work in a community-based business, and you take more care of the business than the community, it can backfire. Taking down issues 1-6 (whatever the reasons) was insulting to a lot of people and confusing to a lot more. The pride and ownership of being a part of JPG through those contributions was greatly damaged for a lot of people by that misjudgment.And though I can imagine a theoretical scenario where earnest business priorities might have haplessly lead someone into crafting a more simple and focused story for the company's publishing model pitch, I don't think that's the point.
The point is that removing issues 1-6 tells me (no matter the intent) that the priorities of "the new JPG" are not aligned with the priorities of the old JPG. And that's disappointing to me, and a lot of other people.
Paul Cloutier has finally come up with a non-weak non-corporate speak response to the community.
I want to apologize to everyone for not being more transparent about what is going on right now, but this has been difficult because when I write I am not just writing as myself, I also have to represent the company and the team. Departures among friends and startups are usually really messy, and my desire not to get into a big fight in public with Derek over something I view as best kept private has led me to try to avoid getting into personal attacks. However I realize that this is not just a personal matter between Derek and I, in fact Derek and I should have nothing to do with this. Instead of worrying about airing dirty laundry, I should have been more clear and told you all what is going on with JPG.
Emphasis mine because I believe that's the most important part of Paul's opening paragraph. It sucks really bad that Derek and Heather are gone from JPG. It sucks even more that they're gone, the first 6 issues of the magazine were pulled and the people running 8020 and JPG gave absolutely no information to the JPG community at all. I know it would be a much better business model for the company if the community would be involved in providing and voting on images and ignore/stay out of the actual business end of things. But it doesn't work like that. You can't have us be all involved and interested and invested and then decide to remove any mention of the founders and the hard work of all the people that participated in the first 6 issues and expect us to just quietly let that pass by. My first inclination was to write "arbitrarily decide to remove" but as the next quote from Paul shows it wasn't arbitrary. However until the community revolted 8020/JPG* didn't give us any hint as to whether the decisions were arbitrary/ based on a personal vendetta/based on a specific business strategy/based on it being a Tuesday or what.
The early issues of JPG being removed from the site for so long was a mistake. We never intended them to be erased from the history of JPG and everyone that contributed to them has a right to be angry about that. The plan was to find a way to include the old issues on the site but to more clearly show that they came before 8020 and to talk about how they were different from what we are doing now. I know that many of you don't care about that distinction but from a business standpoint we have to talk about the magazines we are making now. We make magazines that are 100% reader created, 100% community vetted, offset printed, nationally distributed with subscriptions. The older issues of JPG were reader created but still completely decided by two editors and were a non commercial project. Since the old issues were the only ones you could buy at this point (we haven't finished the tools to let us sell back issues of the new magazines) we were uncomfortable having them positioned the same as the new ones.This is a sucky situation for everyone especially the team at 8020 and everyone in the community that is caught in the middle of this. For my part in not coming to you guys sooner to explain what is going on, I am sorry. JPG can't function without the participation and communication of the community and I have to be a part of that even if it is hard. All I ask from you guys though is that you respect that this is an enormously difficult time for everyone involved and to please give us the chance to prove that we are all rational and capable people who want nothing more than to make JPG continue to be great.
CTO of 8020 Jason DeFillippo basically calls Derek's side of the story complete fiction.
I had listened to his side of what happened trying to reconcile what he was saying with what I knew of the facts and they didn't mesh. Not even closely. I had been in the office for all the fights and I had been witness to the discussions and to the uncompromising nature that he showed throughout the entire process. His version did not match the facts. Period.
I don't know any of the people involved with the personally. So I can't look at Derek's post and Jason's post and then say "Oh I believe Derek" or "I believe Jason." I don't know them, I don't know who to believe. But I do know that even if Derek's post was 100% bullshit fiction it's complete fact that he and Heather were removed from the JPG Magazine about section and only added back after fierce community reaction. It's fact that the first 6 issues of the magazine were removed and are still missing from the website. Maybe the company* didn't mean to make it look like they were rewriting history but you have rewritten history when you've made a good chunk of the history disappear and be inaccessible.
I didn't delete my JPG account like a lot of people. I didn't want to be rash and regret it later. I was and am incredibly proud that my work appeared in issue 7 of JPG. It's that issue number in particular that's brings this story to my mind so much. Had my work appeared one issue earlier then any mention of it would be absent from the JPG website. I'd be horrified if that had happened so I can well imagine how people whose work appeared in those issues must feel. A, perhaps ironic, deeper layer to this for me personally is that I don't think my work would have been published without Paul Cloutier. He favorited my eventually published image and since "The JPG editors make the final selections and put together the issue" I can't help but think that his liking my image is what made it get chosen for publication.
*I've thought so much about this story and situation since I first wrote about it on Saturday. I've spent more brain cells on it that I probably should have. I've reread everything I've written on it in light of the finally (yes in web time 5 days after the fact deserves finally) published statements from some people at 8020/JPG. I wanted to make sure I didn't write anything in haste that doesn't stand up to the facts that are currently available and didn't personally attack anyone I didn't know. I think my statements do stand up and I don't think that I harshly or personally attacked anyone. That being said my current analysis of the situation is the same as my previous one, which I'll condense for you now.
JPG Magazine seems to have just flipped the switch from being a community to being user generated content.
Those thousands and thousands of us who are really passionate about photography and were really passionate about JPG Magazine from the very beginning are small potatoes compared to the new audience and new participants 8020 and its venture capitalist are looking to as participants in the new JPG.
I think this position holds up because until this situation erupted I never knew a "new JPG" and "old JPG" existed. I thought JPG had evolved from a quarterly on-demand printed magazine to a 6 times a year subscription magazine. JPG Magazine had grown up, not become a completely different entity. The only thing that seems to have made the "new JPG" a completely different entity is that it was sold to 8020. Paul Cloutier says
The plan was to find a way to include the old issues on the site but to more clearly show that they came before 8020 and to talk about how they were different from what we are doing now. I know that many of you don't care about that distinction but from a business standpoint we have to talk about the magazines we are making now. We make magazines that are 100% reader created, 100% community vetted, offset printed, nationally distributed with subscriptions. The older issues of JPG were reader created but still completely decided by two editors and were a non commercial project.
The community doesn't care that issues 1-6 came before 8020 and that issues 7 and beyond are published by 8020. We don't care about 8020, we care about JPG. We want JPG to succeed. We don't care if that's with 8020, with some other company or it goes back to being a non-commercial venture as long as history, culture and community of JPG is intact. Clearly that's not a solid business model for 8020, the company that now owns JPG.
I don't think 8020/JPG's intent in removing the first 6 issues of JPG was malicious. I think it was a very miscalculated business decision that was part of a larger business plan whose goal was to cement the marriage of JPG and 8020 (that said I do think removing any mention of Derek and Heather on the JPG site seems malicious). If that was their goal then this situation has actually achieved that goal far, far better than a better handled situation would have. Now when I think about JPG I think about the Derek & Heather JPG (issues 1-10) and I think about the 8020/JPG (all future issues). There were never 2 JPGs in my mind before. Never an old JPG and a new JPG, now there is. When I write about JPG Magazine in the future I think I'll probably reference it always as 8020/JPG.
I mean there is still no update to any of this on the JPG Magazine blog or website. There are updates on the 8020 blog and Flickr forums. So it only makes sense to connect and keep connected 8020 and the name JPG.
The end result of all this fallout is that we, the JPG community, is much more aware that 8020/JPG is a business venture that wants to make money and that it's really not the same project as the Derek and Heather JPG was. There's no judgment in that statement. The 8020/JPG could kick major ass and we'll find out if it does starting with issue 11. Maybe I'm wrong in my earlier predictions about it going more commercial/mass audience appealing maybe I'm not. At this point it doesn't really matter. 8020/JPG is starting fresh in my mind from this point. That's maybe not fair but you can't put the toothpaste back in the bottle. 8020 wanted to make sure everyone realized that JPG history was pre and post 8020 but Derek leaving JPG, the deletion of Derek and Heather from the website, the removal of the first 6 issues from the website, 8020's lack of response for so long, and Paul's eventual very business oriented response have all compounded to rewrite JPG's history into pre and post "JPG Disaster May 2007" instead.
My (I think) final thought on all of this is that I hope Derek and Heather start another photography print venture. I think there is room in the marketplace for competition and they are clearly brilliant in developing that concept. For this to happen of course JPG needs to not implode completely so I hope 8020/JPG finds a way to survive and grow through this.
Tags: photography, JPG Magazine, Derek Powazek, Paul Cloutier, 8020 Publishing, Heather Champ, 8020/JPG