Can the Chicago Sun-Times make it work?

The last few years have been surprise after surprise for newspapers across America. From the closing of the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News to the reduction in print days for the Times Picyune, metropolitan newspapers have been making headline upon headline that has the industry tied in knots.

The latest blow that has newsrooms everywhere talking is the announcement that the Chicago Sun-Times has fired it's photography staff and will train reporters to take photos with iPhones.

Madness!

...or is it?

I have long argued that we are on the verge of a philosophical change in the news business. We can no longer  afford to think in terms of traditional labels in our business.

There is no longer a place at the table for a "reporter". These people must evolve and become content generators if newspapers are to thrive. They will need to become quality photographers, videographers, and even editors. They will need to become mobile production studios, capable of writing, editing photos, and creating videos of their stories to feed an ever more hungry news audience that no longer relies just on the written word.

Now, I don't think there is no place left for photographers. They still have a lot of value to a newspaper. But they will not be responsible for the bulk of content being generated for an evolving online news medium.

I've been argued with plenty in this regard too. Photographers love to argue that reporters won't be able to replace their quality artwork and years of training. I agree. They won't. And they don't need to.

This week I purchased two $100 point and shoot cameras for our reporters with the understanding that all stories they file from here out will have artwork. It won't be amazing angles and creative use of blurs... and our audience won't know the difference or even care. 16 megapixels makes up for a lot of mistakes in shooting a photo, and I promise you the average news reader would much rather have a "lesser quality" photo, than no photo artwork at all.

The Sun-Times isn't exactly saying no to top quality photographs either. They plan to sub-contract photographers and use plenty of freelance. Good pictures from good photographers will still be purchased and used often. It's a solid plan.

But the bulk of their photos will come from iPhones in the hands of an untrained reporting staff. And unless there is a secret mutiny in the newsroom, the readers won't really see any decline in overall quality, and those things shoot in 8 megapixels.

Photographers that want to survive this next evolution of newspapers are going to have to become skilled in more than just shooting a photo now. The days of knowing how to develop film and play with chemicals are over, and they aren't coming back. It's far easier for publishers to justify the cost of training a reporter to use Photoshop than to pay a photographer to do what a reporter can do.

So what is the answer for photographers who don't want to lose their jobs to journalists? They are going to need to fight fire with fire, and become journalists.

Photo journalists. Content creators. Video editors. Time to expand that skill base.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and there is no doubt that a story told in photo tells even more. A video tells even more.

Can the Chicago Sun-Times survive on photographs taken on iPhones by reporters who aren't ask highly trained, skilled, and maybe even talented?

I am betting they can survive. The question now becomes whether photographers can survive the next wave of newspapers. I think they can, if they are willing to evolve with it.