Chicago Sun-Times Fires Photo Staff, Will Train Reporters to Use iPhones For Photos

MacRumors · May 31, 2013

A day after the Chicago Sun-Times fired the entirety of its 28-person photo staff, Chicago media critic Robert Feder (via Cult of Mac) is reporting that the newspaper is training its reporters in iPhone photography to produce the photo content the paper requires.

Sun-Times reporters begin mandatory training today on "iPhone photography basics" following elimination of the paper's entire photography staff. "In the coming days and weeks, we'll be working with all editorial employees to train and outfit you as much as possible to produce the content we need," managing editor Craig Newman tells staffers in a memo.

Chicago Tribune photojournalist Alex Garcia criticized the move, calling it "idiotic" because reporters are not prepared to create both visual and written content. He also criticized using iPhones for photojournalism because the smartphone lacks options like different lenses and manual controls, which DSLR's have.

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. 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% gray, anyway?

Apple's various iPhones have become some of the most popular cameras on Flickr, outranking more advanced DSLR cameras like the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Apple has made efforts to greatly improve the iPhone's camera over its past few iterations and in late April, the company even released an ad focusing on the popularity of the iPhone's camera.

Article Link: Chicago Sun-Times Fires Photo Staff, Will Train Reporters to Use iPhones For Photos

hasanahmad · May 31, 2013

I agree. No way is phone photograph no more than casual photography. Serious photography will always be with SLR. Stupid decision

Stuipdboy1000 · May 31, 2013

Sounds like a headline straight from The Onion.

GSPice · May 31, 2013

If this is so "idiotic," the Sun-Times will regret the decision, and lose tons of money. We'll see just how idiotic it ends up being.

ufwa · May 31, 2013

Sounds more like they are cutting costs.

I assume they pay for the iphones already, so double duty for those guys. Why pay for another group who's only job is to take photos.

Side comment: If this takes off and other papers adopt this policy what will Peter Parker do for a job?

Schtumple · May 31, 2013

Stuipdboy1000 said:
Sounds like a headline straight from The Onion.

I honestly did a double take, this is an awful idea.

That and asking reporters to do the job of a photographer too, without the proper training that a photographer would learn (this is not the same as "iphone photography training").

This story is sad.

Tilpots · May 31, 2013

While I agree that it's not good for journalism, it's another part of the pay to play world we live in. How many of you opposed to this would buy a subscription/pay more to a news service to have an incrementally better picture? People aren't hardly willing to pay anything as it is so I'm not surprised when I see companies make moves like this. Do I like it? No. Do I understand it? Yup.

appleguy123 · May 31, 2013

Shame. One of the main reasons I seeked out newspapers and their websites was the superior photo quality compared to Facebook reddit and Twitter.

TMar · May 31, 2013

You're never more than a few feet away from the story so no need to splurge on the iphone telephoto lens. Idiots.

samcraig · May 31, 2013

Idiotic move is idiotic.

Photojournalism can sometimes be handled by someone inexperienced. But it's also an artform. And great pictures can be taken with any camera. But sometimes you have to have the right equipment. And the iPhone is not the right equipment to capture everything and anything.

Maybe the CST should stop printing a NEWSPAPER and just become an online collection of blogs. Hey - they can partner with Yahoo/Tumblr

GoCubsGo · May 31, 2013

If you've been following this story past the poorly reported bit here, there is also a move towards video. I don't have time to watch video or the desire to look at some half-assed and hard to see cell phone pic. It's a ****ed up move but it's life, I suppose.

Mums · May 31, 2013

Newspapers are going out of business so it doesn't really matter in the long run, except to those photographers who were and will be fired. I kind of hate "professional photographers" anyways because they tend to be arrogant tools, so I guess I'm taking a kind of schadenfreudist pleasure in their being fired.

Anyways, the demise of photography --and filmmaking-- is inevitable now that everyone has high-def video cameras in their pockets. At the risk of being fatalist, I'm not sure that there is anything anyone can do about it. Digital content is all functioning in a crowd source model now.

samcraig · May 31, 2013

Mums said:
I kind of hate "professional photographers" anyways because they tend to be arrogant tools, so I guess I'm taking a kind of schadenfreudist pleasure in their being fired.

There are big differences between photojournalists and paparazzi.

JayJayAbels · May 31, 2013

Photographers are pissed! lol

Gotta embrace the tech fellas. Reminds me of how audio engineers hated the move from analog to digital and then talked down about mp3's.

It's a new world we live in. Roll with it or get rolled over.

SchneiderMan · May 31, 2013

Such a stupid move, unless they're in serious financial troubles which is still crazy.

samcraig · May 31, 2013

JayJayAbels said:
Photographers are pissed! lol

Gotta embrace the tech fellas. Reminds me of how audio engineers hated the move from analog to digital and then talked down about mp3's.

It's a new world we live in. Roll with it or get rolled over.

Photographers have often stayed current with technology - they shoot with digital cameras of the latest variety. I'm not sure you have a valid argument here.

There's a difference between shooting with an iPhone and shooting with a DSLR. There's a difference between amateur reporting and photography and professional.

If one doesn't know the difference or thinks it doesn't matter "much" - perhaps those people shouldn't be discussing it.

JayCee842 · May 31, 2013

Desperate moves to reduce costs? If they were in trouble prior to this idiotic move, then they have just gotten themselves into even more trouble.

I wonder if others will follow the same move.

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JayJayAbels said:
Photographers are pissed! lol

Gotta embrace the tech fellas. Reminds me of how audio engineers hated the move from analog to digital and then talked down about mp3's.

It's a new world we live in. Roll with it or get rolled over.

Your ignorance amuses me.

SirChadwick · May 31, 2013

There used to be a day when one would pull up to a gas station and there would be a person to fill your tank, check your oil, clean the windshield and check the tires for air. Why don't we see this anymore, well, we just don't want to pay for it. The same may be for high quality professionally presented photos from a news organization.

MSUSpartan · May 31, 2013

I love photography. This is sad but just part of our ever evolving society. Great journalistic photography will still exist in photo essays and commissioned work. There are enough qualified free lancers in any major metro area to cover your dailies.

Award winning journalist or not, they got there at least in part because they had access and a great editing staff. That will still be there for the talented freelancers.

sexiewasd · May 31, 2013

This is a terrible idea for so many reasons. If they really are in such hard times that this caliber of penny pinching is required than I think that in the long run non of it will matter much anyways.

Prof. · May 31, 2013

I never buy their paper nor go to their website, but now I'm for sure never going to support their business.

samcraig · May 31, 2013

Can't wait for all the instagram/hipstamatic filtered crap

MSUSpartan · May 31, 2013

Prof. said:
I never buy their paper nor go to their website, but now I'm for sure never going to support their business.

You never did anyway along with many others. That's why they are here.

marksman · May 31, 2013

This is both sad and ridiculous.

As someone who used to read two to three papers a day for many, many years but who has not regularly read a newspaper for close to fifteen years it is not surprising. I might glance at a paper a handful of times in a year. I have to believe older people are the only people reading newsprint these days. I don't even read any magazines any longer and I used to read 25-30 magazines a month.

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GSPice said:
If this is so "idiotic," the Sun-Times will regret the decision, and lose tons of money. We'll see just how idiotic it ends up being.

Not likely to make any real difference. Papers are doomed. This might allow them to operate a bit longer with reduced costs but it is not like printed news media is going to have a resurgence short of an apocolypse.

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Tilpots said:
While I agree that it's not good for journalism, it's another part of the pay to play world we live in. How many of you opposed to this would buy a subscription/pay more to a news service to have an incrementally better picture? People aren't hardly willing to pay anything as it is so I'm not surprised when I see companies make moves like this. Do I like it? No. Do I understand it? Yup.

Yeah and very few online sources have dedicated photographers. They buy photos or people with other jobs take them.

samcraig · May 31, 2013

marksman said:
Yeah and very few online sources have dedicated photographers. They buy photos or people with other jobs take them.

I'm not opposed to people using freelancers. What I find ridiculous is that they are "training" amateurs on iPhones. iPhones.

That's a lot different than using freelancers. Or even buying wire images.

Chicago Sun-Times Fires Photo Staff, Will Train Reporters to Use iPhones For Photos

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