Shooting the shooters?

NFL Tells Photog Group: Vests With Ads Will Stay

(Because photographs can go on a bookshelf, and because what happens in on sport can spread to the rest of the sports community…)

An Aug. 6 story on Editor and Publisher brings a disturbing story about forcing the NFL mandating that news photographers must wear logo-encrusted “safety vests” which bear the logos for Reebok and Canon. The National Press Photographers Association has complained that such a fiat is a conflict of interest. The vests have also “sparked opposition from the Associated Press Managing Editors, American Society of Newspaper Editors and several other news organizations.” Despite the hue and cry, including the threat of a boycott, the NFL is standing firm in its decision:

According to the story, written by Joe Strupp,

The NFL says there are no plans to add additional logos to the vests, or to increase the size of the marks, and that they think the Reebok and Canon logos are appropriate because the vests are made by Reebok and because Canon ‘has made the commitment to fund the cost of the vest,’” NPPA reported on its Web site after receiving the letter from NFL vice president of public relations Greg Aiello, which added that “Both logos are directly related to the manufacture of the vest. Given this, it is inaccurate to characterize them as advertising messages sold to NFL sponsors or others.

“If our goal had been media visibility, we would have allowed Canon to display its name in much larger letters on the back of the vests where it could more readily be seen by the television cameras that are located above and behind the photographers,” Aiello wrote in the letter, according to NPPA. “Instead, ‘Canon’ appears in letters only 0.7 inches high, less than a quarter of the size of the NFL shield logo and no larger than the logo of Reebok, and actual manufacturer of the vest.”

So, in essence, Aiello is saying that size does matter.

I can’t remember where I read it, but someone warned that this could turn into a NASCAR scenario, with ads plastered on every available inch of those on the sidelines, trying to do their job.