http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/05/31/chicago-sun-times-axes-all-staff-photographers-offers-reporters-iphoneography-training

As a former photojournalist myself, wow. Just wow. Are they crazy!? Fire a Pulitzer prize winning professional photographer and expect an iPhone to do better than him?

Some people will just never understand the idea that the photographer makes the photograph, not the camera.

Worrisome is right. Makes me kind of glad I branched out of photojournalism when I did.

I dont think they expect iphones to do better, or the reporters, but apparently they think its good enough and have no need for photographers. I read the Chicago Sun Times are financially struggling. Its no good to keep your photographers and go down in the end. Then everybody is out of a job. News papers need to cut cost these days, as the internet takes over. I can see where they are coming from, none the less, the developments are worrisome

On the other hand, internet or not - impactful images is driving more readers to the newspaper than text - so cutting the photographers might be one of the worst ideas.

whats the first thing you look at when you pick up a paper? The photo and the headline!

So why not fire all the reporters and get the photographers to just write a few words...? They can even dictate it into an iphone... When you think about it, it's about as insane as what they've done.

One of Scotland's two biggest national newspapers sacked most of its togs 3-4 years ago, because it was either that or fold completely.

In the UK, it certainly IS the case that the newspapers with a higher photo to text ratio which sell best, but these are the (often embarrassing) tabloids with celeb / footballer pics, not those with high photojournalism standards. I realise this is probably a UK thing.

Why does it have to be either or? Either photogs or writers?

Why does it have to be either or? Either photogs or writers?

Because they cant keep all staff. Its quite simple, cut cost or go bust

The job cuts come as newspapers across the world struggle with declining advertising and subscription revenues.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22723725

None the less, they could have kept a few on staff, cutting all 28 is quite a drastic move

Can't wait to see their images from the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, and White Sox games.  Would be funny to see them on the sidelines with their Iphones.

Can't wait to see their images from the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, and White Sox games.  Would be funny to see them on the sidelines with their Iphones.

They'll buy in from Getty/whoever.

these newspapers were cr-ap since even before the internet and digital, it's no news that they were losing readers and money since forever.

too late now, and dont worry, journalists will be fired as well and replaced with cheap or volunteer bloggers, just as AOL and others did.

What they really want is for readers to supply all the content.  And then pay for it.

actually there's never been shortage of free content even in the past.

what makes the difference is exclusive content and it doesnt come cheap.

i could make a newspaper myself lifting blog articles and random cr-ap found on the net but to make unique i should rewrite from scratch most of it and should all fit in a "format" and an editorial line and this will take a full time editor and a photo editor and a few assistants at least.

you cannot just make an assembly of random content, that's Google News or any other "news aggregator", not a real newspaper, and nobody would pay for it.

i mean, the cost of the content is not what's killing newspapers, there's just no more the critical mass of readers as in the past especially readers willing to pay for all these political news.

if you think paper magazines are dead look at the gossip/tabloid ones, they still sell millions of copies but guess what, they've plenty of exclusive content and exclusive photos and plenty of weird stories you dont find on Reuters/AP/AFP.

and they're very funny in their titles if you have a sense of humour, i would definitely read THE SUN while taking a sh-it.

I'd still like to know what's happening in the world, and in my city, and I'm willing to pay something for it.  I'm an unserved market.

I like to know, but that's what the Beeb is for.
I stopped getting a newspaper not long after we got married, so over 30 years ago, as we never had time to read them and had a pile of unread papers by the weekend. Then I got one called the Guardian Weekly, which aggregated the week's news from the Guardian, Le Monde and either NYT or WP, but never read that either.
The local paper might theoretically be more interesting, except that I know to my cost that their standards of journalistic accuracy leaves much to be desired, so I boycott it.

The fact is there is a new �esthetic� brought about, mainly, by the Internet and and its democratic-.  Sad to say, but the reason Professional Photojournalists are no longer needed is because the readers of the media can't tell the difference between a good and bad photograph.

Or if they can, they don't care.