We here at Mac|Life love our iPhones, but we'd never go so far as to say that it makes everyone into a professional photographer. But that's apparently what the Chicago Sun-Times thinks, as it recently laid off its entire photography staff in favor of teaching its regular reporters "iPhone photography basics" so they can produce their own photos and, yes, videos. It's an especially bizarre decision for the Sun-Times, which is known for taking adventage of its tabloid format to deliver photo-heavy editions.
The demand for video, at least, is the reason provided in a statement that the Sun-Times released earlier:
"The Sun-Times business is changing rapidly and our audiences are consistently seeking more video content with their news. We have made great progress in meeting this demand and are focused on bolstering our reporting capabilities with video and other multimedia elements. The Chicago Sun-Times continues to evolve with our digitally savvy customers, and as a result, we have had to restructure the way we manage multimedia, including photography, across the network."
Above: Today's Sun-Times cover indicates just how photo-heavy the Sun-Times can be.
Cult of Mac placed the decision in the context of the many ways in which the iPhone, which now has resolutions better than many point-and-shoots, is changing journalism. When Hurricane Sandy landed in New York, they point out, reporters for Time used the magazine's Instagram account to upload photos. One of the reporters' photos was even used for the cover story.
Still, in a widely circulated editorial in Chicago, Chicago Tribune (the Sun-Times' rival paper) photographer Alex Garcia pointed out the many problems with the approach. "An iPhone is just an iPhone. It doesn’t have a telephoto to see way past police lines or across a field, ballroom or four-lane highway," Garcia said. "It doesn’t have a lot of manual controls to deal with the countless situations that automatic exposure will fail to capture. How many situations are 18 percent gray, anyway?"
Garcia also argued that the Sun-Times' video argument is flawed. "I have never been in a newsroom where you could do someone else’s job and also do yours well," Garcia said. "Even when I shoot video and stills on an assignment, with the same camera, both tend to suffer. They require different ways of thinking."
According to Crain's Chicago Business, the number of photographers affected by the decision at the nation's tenth largest newspaper could be as high as 30, if both part-time and full-time photographers are included. It's but another indication of the troubles faced by print newspapers, and the Chicago Sun-Times is feeling the pain more than most, which may account for the fairly unprecedented decision. As the Chicago Tribune reports, the Sun-Times recently failed to meet the demands of a $70 million printing agreement with the Tribune itself. It's unknown what impact the recent loss of beloved movie critic and Sun-Times icon Roger Ebert had on the paper's fortunes, but it couldn't have been good.
The layoffs included Pulitzer-Prize winning photojournalist John H. White, who had been at the Sun-Times since 1978.
Follow this article's Chicago-based writer, Leif Johnson, on Twitter.
ski542002
June 04, 2013 at 7:11am
Their "video reasoning" is bogus. This is strictly an economic saving measure in an attempt to plug the holes in a sinking ship. Settling for mediocrity will only hasten their demise.
P_Robinson
June 02, 2013 at 3:23pm
Anyone with any aesthetic and historical sense knows that a reporter with an iPhone is no substitute for a real photographer.
There are classic photos that have been central to news stories...and will live in people's collective memory. The idea that photography is only needed for magazines such as the National Geographic and not for newspapers or the web demonstrates a lack of understanding of what photography is and what can it do.
Just as an old-time reporter may have a nose for a story; the photographer has an eye for a picture. They know light, contrast, composition, and significance.
Sadly, the same mentality at work here is also the one the discards workers, demeans the culture, and undermines aesthetic sensibilities. (Alas, along with eliminating photographers, investigative reporting is going by the board, too!)
msalakka
June 02, 2013 at 3:50am
Unfortunate as it is for photographers, the industry is changing and the Sun-Times is just trying to keep up. This isn't National Geographic, it's news. It's not like the 1960's when the President got shot and you read the morning paper to find out what happened. They had perhaps more time to send photographers out to take gorgeous pictures. Nowadays everyone has a camera in their pocket, and you can capture and upload. CNN.com had video of the West, TX incident up on their front page, and it wasn't shot by pros with outrageously expensive equipment.
