Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer apologizes on Twitter for “misstatement” about professional photographers and Flickr

 

 

Less than a day after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer stirred up a firestorm of criticism for comments some felt were disparaging of professional photographers, she took to Twitter to offer several rounds of apologies to her followers. Indeed, nearly every tweeted reply in the last 24 hours from Mayer's Twitter account had the word "apology," "apologize," or "apologies" in it.

"I worded my answer terribly. I really apologize for what it sounded like outside of the context and notion of Flickr Pro," one of Mayer's tweets read.

Here's a screenshot of some of those tweets.

 

 

Mayer was following up on comments she made at a Yahoo event this week to unveil wide-scale changes to Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing service. As part of the changes to Flickr, its Flickr Pro service is being phased out, a move that caught some professional photographers by surprise.

Here's our transcription of what Mayer said at the Flickr event while answering a question about Flickr Pro.

"There's no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there's no such thing, really, as professional photographers when there's everything that's professional photographers. Certainly there's varying levels of skills but we didn't want to have a Flickr Pro anymore. We wanted everyone to have professional quality photo space and sharing."
-- Marissa Mayer

While it was clearly an off-the-cuff remark, some pros took offense to Mayer's statement that "there's no such thing, really, as professional photographers." Others, however, felt it was just a minor slip up.  (Comments in our post from yesterday have been running about 50/50.)

So does this put an end to this controversy for you? We're still waiting for a response to our request for a clarification on Mayer's statement from Flickr's public relations wing. (But we're not holding our breath.)