iPhones for everyone left standing!
Union-busting or empty pockets? asks a Fortune story at the CNN link, above.
Whither the Straight Dope?
Watching the death of newspapers isn’t pretty.
This won’t end well for the Chicago Sun. You can’t replace a skilled photographer’s eye for composition with an IPhone. Delivering an inferior product to its readers wil simply hasten the end of the paper.
And we read the story where? On the Internet.
I am not happy to see a group of professionals lose their jobs - they would be much better as part of the solution, not scapegoated as the problem, but sadly a fearful management in crisis tends to do things like this.
Ever since the masses have taken to getting their news on the Internet and news operations have been unable to figure out how to make money on the web, the death spiral of traditional media has continued unabated.
Michael Miner, the Media writer for the Chicago Reader also wrote about this today.
Worth a read.
Stoopit move. An iphone (or android, or crackberry) doesn’t have near optics, manual controls, or lens of a high end SLR. A phone held up to a pair of binoculars does not a telephoto lens make. I have composed pictures with the sun in the background. A $10/$20 hood blocks out enough of the direct light that I can get the silhouetted shot that I was going for. How do you do this with a phone, hold a matchbook over it? I also know where to stand & how to compose shots from years of experience. When you’re *speaking *to someone to get a story, does it matter if you stand directly in front of, or to the left or right side of the person you’re interviewing?
That’s not meant as a knock on the reporters, I wouldn’t attempt to do their job. What’s the line about I’m just smart enough to know I’m not that smart?
They’re not just wanting reporters to use iPhones, they’ll also be using freelance photographers.
Obviously the economical move is to go one step further and fire their reporters: I mean, isn’t rewriting press releases, wire services, user submitted input and some freelance reporters adequate?
Rewriting? You optimist!
I’ve been thinking about newspaper photos. There doesn’t seem to be all that many in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It’s the main statewide paper here. They don’t document as many stories with photos anymore. I’m guessing because the tv news can do it better with video?
Our newspaper is a shadow of it’s former glory days. I can usually get through the daily paper in about 20 minutes. There’s not that much local reporting anymore. Some local crime stories, and maybe a local political story. That’s about it. There’s almost nothing in there about local events, or local interest stories. A lot in the main section is just National wire stories that I’d already read online the day before.
We used to have a newspaper war between the Arkansas Democrat and Arkansas Gazette. Back in those days the newspaper was four times as thick. Packed full of local reporting. One paper was conservative and the other paper moderate/liberal. After the two papers merged it was downhill from there.
Personally, I think professional photographers are vital for a newspaper.
Journalists can certainly do their own photography but generally their skills are in writing, not photo composition.
Having said that, the cameras in most smartphones are actually pretty good - sure, they don’t have the flexibility of a DSLR but for probably 85% of what a typical journalist might be doing (Politician making announcement, angry residents being cross at government/local council, local business owners commenting on the economy, etc) you can take perfectly cromulent story illustrations with an iPhone, especially for the online version of the publication where the story may only be up for a few hours.
Supposedly, the marketplace will decide whether professional photographers are worth paying for. That may be true in the long run, but this is a really silly move in my opinion.
And did it surprise anyone else to realize that the Dope’s own Spiderman is a professional photographer. Peter Parker, is that you? 
I don’t think great photography is what people look for in their daily news. Beautiful though it may be, that level of quality is more appropriate for magazine spreads or art than news.
Are the Chicago Reader and the Chicago Sun-Times competitors?
I guess there is some market overlap. Just like there is between a microbrewer and the A & W root beer company.
The Sun-Times owns the Reader — and the Dope.
Whoops. I guess A & W must own a microbrewery then. 
I guess that means we won’t be getting a ‘Photography’ Forum here any time soon?
No it just means they’ll take the photos from there and put it in the paper for free.
Wow. And it’s not doing so well? I always thought the Reader was kinda big.
Excellent post, [del]Mr. Parker[/del]Spiderman.