By Daryl Lang

© Newsweek

A recent Newsweek cover.

Three other Newsweek photo staffers—deputy director of photography Susanne Miklas, photo coordinator Leah Latella, and senior photo budget administrator Peter Schleissner—lost their jobs in layoffs this week.

The layoffs and Barnett’s exit are another sign of the bloodletting in general-interest magazine photography, as a prolonged advertising downturn forces publishers to make deeper cuts. Newsweek, where ad revenue has plunged 48 percent in a year, has suffered especially hard.

In a memo Wednesday, published by Politico, editor Jon Meacham said Newsweek was eliminating about 12 jobs. Last week, Newsweek competitor Time asked for volunteers to take buyouts as part of hundreds of job reductions at Time Inc.

“The photographic vision for the magazine is not one that I can any longer be considered a good fit for,” Barnett said in an e-mail. He added, “Pictures tend to be used as part of an overall design conceit, not as art in and of itself.  I think it’s called modern, which would seem to make me old fashioned.”

Barnett joined Newsweek as deputy director of photography nine years ago, led photo coverage of the 9/11 attacks, and was made director of photography in June 2003. Previously he has worked at Discover, Esquire, ESPN The Magazine, and the Allsport USA photo agency.

Under Barnett’s direction, Newsweek photographers have collected numerous photo awards. Recently, Shaul Schwarz of Getty Images won the 2009 Robert Capa Gold Medal Award from the Overseas Press Club for coverage of the violent Kenyan presidential election for Newsweek. Newsweek also won six awards in the 2009 Pictures of the Year International Competition.

In May, Newsweek underwent a redesign that refocused the editorial content of the magazine, favoring columns and essays over traditional news coverage. At the same time, the magazine pulled out of the White House photo pool.

In February, the magazine announced plans to cut its circulation rate base from 2.6 million to 1.5 million by January 2010.

Revenue has been in decline for years at the Washington Post Company’s magazine division, which publishes Newsweek and Budget Travel.

Third-quarter revenue for the Washington Post Company’s magazine division was $40.2 million, down 33 percent from a year ago. The magazine division had an operating loss of $29.7 million for the first nine months of 2009. Advertising revenue at Newsweek was down 48 percent in the third quarter and 38 percent for the first nine months of the year, compared to the same periods last year.