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

[kas23]

Why do they need reporters? they should just have citizens write the stories and use iChat to submit them!

/s

I agree. If they can fire photographers and basically substitute them with the equivalent of a photography layperson, then they should be able to replace their reporters with people with a layperson's understanding of writing news stories.

And if anyone feels that the quality of photos will suffer if they are taken with iPhones, the Chicago Sun-Times also looks to equip their reporters with these:

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/24/will-i-am-to-launch-14-megapixel-camera-add-on-for-iphone/

 

[Shrink]

I agree. If they can fire photographers and basically substitute them with the equivalent of a photography layperson, then they should be able to replace their reporters with people with a layperson's understanding of writing news stories.

And if anyone feels that the quality of photos will suffer if they are taken with iPhones, the Chicago Sun-Times also looks to equip their reporters with these:

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/11/24/will-i-am-to-launch-14-megapixel-camera-add-on-for-iphone/

...and call them internet blogs...

 

[samcraig]

Actually you are way off, this is not akin to the analogue vs digital debate. This is more like instead of recording in a professional studio with real microphones placed at each instrument, that you record your next record in your living room using just the single microphone on a cassette deck capturing everything.


A camera phone simple does not have the resolution, depth of field, light sensitivity are image quality that is possible with an DSLR or even mirrorless camera. Think about it, instead of recording your image on a sensor the size of a 35 mm frame, you are recording on a sensor smaller than your pinky fingernail. Not to mention they lack any zoom, telephoto or wide angle abilities ...

You're quoting the wrong person. I never made any analogy regarding home audio. And my reply to the person that did agrees with you.

 

[ClemyNX]

This is an insult to professional photographers.
This kind of decision means that the entire decision making staff should be fired for their idiocy instead.

 

[PinoyAko]

What an idiotic decision.

 

[macking104]

Firing every photographer is not good... but, there are many times when you don't need a $1500 camera and extra person-- like photos at mayor's news conference, the big pothole, etc...

 

[rjlawrencejr]

Hmmm perhaps the CST is on to something

Perhaps the CST is on to something. Why? Because with the exception of a select few, almost no one here actually read the article (from the Tribune). Instead the great majority of the comments are critical of the decision, but only in reaction to the Macrumors story and not the actual article explaining what will be happening.

Although I have little professional journalism experience, my hunch is that when a story breaks and a reporter is dispatched, said reporter will likely call his or her professional photographer contacts who will then accompany said reporter on said story.

As another poster explained, the paper will buy photos from freelance professional photographers. Stories such as sports, accidents, disasters, all call for pros who know, from experience, how to get the right shot. However, not every situation calls for a professional photographer. Besides, they will still have photo editors who will be the gatekeepers and decide when the reporter's photo is adequate or when a professional shot will tell the story better.

Is it sad? Of course. That's 28 people who now no longer have a guaranteed source of steady income. While I'm sure they might get a nice sum per photo sold, they will now have to sell a lot of photos just to make up for the loss in income.

 

[gkarris]

I can see how this makes sense. An iPhone is a lot more versatile than a dslr. Why carry a huge camera and bunch of lenses in an enormous camera bag when you could just carry a teeny iPhone. And if anybody has ever looked at a newspaper they will know that the pictures look terrible anyway with cheap ink, cheap paper, and super low dpi. If I want to make serious art, I will use a dslr. But a pic in a newspaper, I don't care. And iPhone photos aren't really that bad anyways. Get over it.

This...

Talking with people around Chicago, their attitude is that their phones take as good if not better a picture than an expensive camera.

If this is how the public feels about pictures, they won't even notice the change in the newspapers...

I heard that they also want to tap in on Crowd-Sourcing a lot of the pics from Twitter, FaceBook, etc.

The Chicago Sun-Times will be the first of many, then trickling into the video news media....

 

[Carlanga]

I find it funny how many of you in the forum react. It makes sense that most of you that react this way do so because you either work with photography or are serious about the hobby. As for me, it goes either way. Most photos in newspapers are not amazingly taken and inner I can take better picture with my iPhone than most of the pics I saw in today's newspaper.

Hate seeing jobs lost due to this, but incredibles pics are not a necessity. Pictures in stories were never the main attraction. They are made to attract the reader to that particular story. iPhones can take very decent pictures for the quality needed in a newspaper.

 

[Shrink]

This...

Talking with people around Chicago, their attitude is that their phones take as good if not better a picture than an expensive camera.

If this is how the public feels about pictures, they won't even notice the change in the newspapers...

I heard that they also want to tap in on Crowd-Sourcing a lot of the pics from Twitter, FaceBook, etc.

The Chicago Sun-Times will be the first of many, then trickling into the video news media....

Sadly, you are probably right.

Further erosion of anything fine in favor of the crude and coarse. Further lowering to the to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Minja]

this has to be a joke
if it's not sunny or bright overcast the camera in all smartphones is useless. I would understand them using nokia 808

 

[MacDav]

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

While I agree that serious photographers mostly use good SLR's, newspapers are not exactly known for "quality, high res" photographs. The main drawback I see would be the lack of long zoom lenses. Obviously, this is an attempt to save money since most newspapers are losing money fast. Whether this will help to stem the tide of losses or not is debatable. Time will tell whether it was a good decision. You don't know if this is a good decision or not. It's a bad decision for quality, but quality is not why they made this decision.

 

[MacDav]

hahaha...agreed. smartphones dont have a true camera, they are only used for some casual photos, the true camera is a DSLR that's why every magazine and newspaper use them. chicago sun-times are gonna go down if they keep on doing this.

They, like most newspapers are already "going down". Why do you think they did this? They need to save money and try to cut losses. Ultimately, the whole newspaper industry will need to change drastically to survive. This is one of the steps they feel is necessary. Less and less people buy newspapers and this kind of action is the result of having less revenue available for staffing.

 

[Kalebra47]

that's a bold move cotton, lets see if it pays off

 

[MacDav]

To see what was lost by this action:

http://j.mp/sun-times-photos

Image

Yes, the constant digital expansion is quickly demolishing the old analog landscape. This is evolutionarily. Millions of people have to change and adapt and many fine artists and craftsmen will have to make hard choices and adapt or die. The story of life on planet earth. Whether this story is joyful or sad depends on where you are sitting at the table of transition, and what is joyful today may be sadness tomorrow.

 

[Rocketman]

Good luck getting a photo if something is remotely far away, I swear camera phones make everything look even smaller and further away.

But they make sure against your will you capture everything no matter how tiny your subject is. OR on indoor family photos you can't stand quite far enough away.

 

[reel2reel]

As others have mentioned, it's just a clear sign that they're struggling HARD to stay afloat. It's obviously a nail in their coffin. Such a stupid decision that can only be made out of desperation.

I personally can't stand the trend of news sites using tiny thumbnails as the only picture for their story. Even more, I hate watching video of a story that's told faster in words and pictures. Who wants to see some stupid anchor prattling in Serious-News-Voice for two minutes before getting to the story. I could be done reading by then.

There's nothing like powerful pictures to capture a moment. This is what pro photographers do and reporters with phones are laughable in comparison. Just look at the some of the amazing photos caught by the press at the Boston Marathon explosion. They weren't captured with cell phones.

 

[Giganova]

Firing 28 photographers will save them around $5M each year. Who can blame them if people expect to get their news for free and don't subscribe to print news media anymore?

 

[flameproof]

At least use one of the brilliant Nokia Lumia phones to get better pix.

 

[cclloyd]

Breaking news: 4 reporters killed in accidents while taking dangerous photos because they couldn't get close enough; 6 reporters arrested for breaking police lines to get better shots.

 

[toaster64]

Aren't the photographers on strike right now, or am I thinking of a different newspaper? I could see them replacing some of the photographers with reporters using smartphones, but you sometimes need a big camera. You don't need a DSLR to take about half the pictures you see in the newspaper, but firing all of them is a bad idea unless it's because of a labor dispute.

Also, instead of iPhones, why not inexpensive point-and-shoots, which can zoom, used by untrained reporters?! Training people to use iPhones... this must be some kind of joke.

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Firing 28 photographers will save them around $5M each year. Who can blame them if people expect to get their news for free and don't subscribe to print news media anymore?

I can blame them for using iPhones instead of something with a zoom and at least "program" settings. Smartphone cameras can't zoom. That's the biggest problem by far, and it's a big problem.

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How can you make a broad statement like that? Are you the spokesman for every human?

Professional photographers are serious people with a serious work. There are plenty of people who admire their work, even if for a newspaper.

Now if you want to speak for yourself, that's fine as it's your opinion. But to make a sweeping, all-encompassing statement such as you did, that's a disservice to everyone because it isn't, cannot, be true.

It could be true, but I doubt there isn't a single person who cares about the photos. I don't really care about the images. Also, on the newspaper, it's in black-and-white and printed really cheaply. I still see the need for professional photographers, just not as many as most newspapers seem to have.

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On zoom fits all. Very minimal manual control. No shallow DOF. And it's a secondary focus for reporters.

We'll see how this develops.

It actually has decent manual control in that it will adjust its settings to expose best whatever you tap on, and there's HDR. But the tiny lens has limitations, you can't do fancy tricks with full manual control, no zoom (!!!), and yes, no short DoF mode.

 

[Joe-Diver]

The CST gets rid of it's photography department and will train reporters to use iPhones. They also replaced all laptops with typewriters. All reporters will be replaced with Internet bloggers....

Oh, wait....I went and read the actual story at CST.....didn't say ANY of that....actually they're changing the way they manage multimedia with the changing times and technology.

No real story now.....sad that those folks lost their jobs....but that's it really. Dang MR....you got me!! Yes, you did you buggers...!

 

[pubwvj]

I agree. If they can fire photographers and basically substitute them with the equivalent of a photography layperson, then they should be able to replace their reporters with people with a layperson's understanding of writing news stories.

Funny you should mention that... Today while reading the above the fold front page newspaper story I kept thinking to myself, 'this sounds like press release'... One thing after another in it. And it was! Then I realized that the local newspaper had closed down it's offices, saw an article about that recently, and was now minimally staffed having consolidated after being bought by another local paper about 100 miles away. The paper still looks much the same but the news stories are mostly APWire, very little local and it turns out the local in this case is just a PR piece about a local business. The editors are having the businesses write about themselves and then publishing these as news stories with a byline from a 'reporter'.

The newspaper is dead. Long live the web.

 

[jclardy]

To those saying the iPhone is great - yes it is a nice camera, for being in your phone. The quality is pretty great during a nice sunny day. But take a night photo of a moving subject and you will have a bad time.

The other issue is zoom. iPhone 5's camera is quite wide at either 24mm or 28mm equivalent. That is fine if you can walk right up to the subject to get a shot (Say for a scheduled interview shot) but anything with a police line is going to be completely useless as you will be too far away.

Now it isn't all bad news - as they most likely will be using more images from other sources like AP or stock editorial image sites. So while they will have to pay to license these photos, they will ultimately end up ahead as they aren't paying full time salaries.

 

[MegamanX]

The CST gets rid of it's photography department and will train reporters to use iPhones. They also replaced all laptops with typewriters. All reporters will be replaced with Internet bloggers....

Oh, wait....I went and read the actual story at CST.....didn't say ANY of that....actually they're changing the way they manage multimedia with the changing times and technology.

No real story now.....sad that those folks lost their jobs....but that's it really. Dang MR....you got me!! Yes, you did you buggers...!

You know CST is not a good source right here. Facts say other wise. THey let go their entire photography staff and then claim "technology"

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/b...off-all-its-full-time-photographers.html?_r=0

Nytimes is a better source than the one who laid everyone off in covering it.