"The Philadelphia Inquirer is my hometown paper," says photographer Will Steacy. "It is the paper my father worked for and the newsroom I grew up running around in." But, like many newspapers, the Inquirer has been struggling to stay afloat in the digital age. As the public turns to Internet for news, ad revenues and circulation numbers have plummeted and the paper has been faced with serious challenges.
With his project, Deadline, Steacy hopes to offer an honest look at the inner-workings of a newsroom and to "shed light onto a complex story that so often is misunderstood as the 'death of newspapers.'" "I am not in the newspaper business," says Steacy, "so this family tradition will most likely die, which is surely big burden to carry, but I intend to preserve this ink stained family tree in the pages of the upcoming two-volume publication."
Since beginning the project in 2009, Steacy has developed an intimate portrait of the paper, while also paying tribute to his father, whom the Inquirer let go in the middle of the project: "I never expected to watch my father get laid off, I never expected the staff and budget cuts to continue as mercilessly as they did. I never thought the day would come when 400 North Broad Street would no longer be the home of The Inquirer. It has been a long gut wrenching journey, but sometimes the hardest pictures to take end up being the most important pictures."
While it has been a difficult and sometimes trying undertaking, Steacy is committed to seeing it through to honor the place of the newspaper in society: "The newspaper for centuries has served as a cornerstone of American society holding our country's institutions, CEOs, politicians and big businesses accountable for their actions, upholding the values, laws and morals that our democracy was founded upon. When we lose reporters, editors, newsbeats and sections of papers, we lose coverage, information, and a connection to our cities and our society, and, in the end, we lose ourselves....The newspaper is much more than a business, it is a civic trust."
Have a look at the series and head over to Steacy's Kickstarter page to help support his project.
