A mysterious final farewell post on MSNBC Photography’s Facebook and Instagram pages has resulted in no small amount of bewilderment from the online photography community. The following status went up on the social media accounts on 12 November 2016: “This will be the last post from the team at MSNBC Photography.

Thank you for following along with us the past few years - we hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have. Our sincerest and fondest thanks goes to all of the photographers with whom we have had the pleasure of working. Your photography is at once inspiring and deeply necessary in this world and we could not be prouder to have been home to some of the most important and moving stories of our time. Thank you. ”

In addition to this goodbye missive, the team posted a photo montage of some of the most affecting images MSNBC Photography has produced throughout the years.

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Up until this point, MSNBC Photography had shared visual content curated by the MSNBC photo editorial team. This included striking pieces of photojournalism related to the world’s biggest news stories and issues. As sincere and touching a final communication this final message may be, the lack of any reason given for the sudden shutdown is disconcerting.

The major concern at hand is the possibility that MSNBC has shut down or massively downsized its in-house photography department. While no official statement of the sort has been given, it would follow an established pattern. Over the last decade an increasing number of news outlets have opted to drop their professional photographer teams in favour of third-party image sourcing, supplemented by providing basic photography training to reporting staff. While some see this as a logical cost-saving measure in an age of ubiquitous camera coverage and severely decreased revenues for news organisations, others have resisted the trend vehemently. Detractors claim that the lack of in-house teams will not only lead to a lessening in the quality of published photographs but will put a chokehold on the breadth of media coverage we may see in the future.

We have reached out to MSNBC for comment on this matter but have received no response as of time of publishing.

2016-11-14 03:00