Time‘s $30 Cover Photo: The Scary Realities of Supply and Demand

The latest “Destruction of Journalism” debate centers on a Time magazine cover announcing “The New Frugality” — a rather meta choice, considering the flap emerging online about the fee Time paid for for the stock photo used: $30.

Is Time devaluing the worth of photographers? Or is it, like everyone else, straining to find creative ways to maximize budgets that have been slashed to bits? And is this “wrong” or just part of the natural order of things?