Last week the Chicago Sun Times fired all of its full-time photographers to replace them with iPhones and more “digital- and video-friendly” tools. This, according to the Chicago Sun Times, frees up reporters to be trained in “iPhone videography and photography.” While it is very evident that our audience is rapidly switching from print media to online media, it is in no way a call to newspapers to cut back on DSLR photography.
The iPhone has a very high quality camera, for its size. Nevertheless, if anyone in their right mind were to pick up a pro-grade DSLR camera, one would soon realize the extreme limits that a iPhone has; for one, it does not have a manual setting in which one can control aperture, shutter speed or ISO.If you are wondering what these three components are, have no fear; you aren’t a photographer. After all, it is a photographer’s job to know these things, not yours. And without knowledge of the essential components of lighting, one could never call themselves a photographer. The Chicago Sun Times, on the other hand, thinks that this is unimportant. I mean, hey, you don’t need 18 megapixels to win a Pulitzer Prize in photography, right?
As it were, that’s what the Sun Times believes. Among the photographers that were fired stands a Pulitzer Prize winner. As consumers of news, we should all be outraged. To win a Pulitzer Prize in any form of journalism is near divine; it’s like the Nobel Prize for scientists, the gold medal for Olympian athletes. For the Chicago Sun Times to not recognize the sheer skill and craftsmanship it takes to compose an aesthetically beautiful photo (usually with natural lighting, and sometimes in the heat of a spot-news situation) is utterly shameful and insulting to world of photography and journalism as whole.
What’s more, the Chicago Sun Times believes that reporters should have the capability to produce beautiful photographs and video with their cellphones. Many writers have never taken a true photojournalism class, let alone had an in-depth crash-course in photography, and are not qualified to be producing professional photojournalism.
On top of that, these people are going to replace professionals who have been honing their craft of photojournalism for a number of years. In no way am I saying that these reporters are not capable of their respective responsibilities; what I am saying, though, is that these people lack the proper training.While I value the humor of watching amateur boxing matches on YouTube and kittens gracefully landing in fish tanks on Tosh.0, I don’t think that this should be the way journalists gather news for a major paper in one of America’s largest cities. Understand that this under appreciation of DSLR’s will not go unnoticed. We will all suffer.
Send your Pulitzer Prize-worthy cellphone photos to Dominic at dvalente@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @redhotdomiNATO
