On Wednesday, after 108 years of trying, the Chicago Cubs finally seized victory with a historic win at baseball’s World Series. Two separate Chicago newspapers rushed to plan front page spreads that would immortalise this event in the annals of sports history.
As one photographer was quick to point out, their choice of images however differed vastly in quality.
/Brian Cassella /Chicago Tribune
While the Tribune’s photo (By Tribune photographer Brian Cassella) is a perfectly composed, striking portrait radiating triumph and emotion, destined to grace sports history books for years to come, the Sun-Times is a poorly cropped hodgepodge of figures, most with their backsides to the camera. Though they both capture the same moment in time, one clearly captures the mood and meaning, while the other could be any baseball game.
/David J. Phillip /AP /Chicago Sun-Times
When the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times released their respective images of this moment to the world, award winning photojournalist David Carson had this to say:
Front pages of @chicagotribune whom employ a staff of pro photographers & @Suntimes who laid off all their photogs. Iconic v Forgetable pic. twitter. com/vUZ0V1AGT8
- David Carson (@PDPJ) November 3, 2016Embedded Javascript
Fellow esteemed photographer Jim Colton voiced a similar sentiment on the poor photojournalism on display.
World Series: Chicago Tribune & the Sun-Times. Staff Photographers v No Staff Photographers. Any questions? #photojournalism @briancassella pic. twitter. com/LHLQ1VFl1o
- Jim Colton (@JimmyColton) November 3, 2016Embedded Javascript
As both men alluded to, in 2013 the Sun-Times fired its entire body of photography staff before telling reporters that they would balance this out by providing training in iPhone photography to their reporting team. As the 8th largest US paper the Sun-Times decision was utterly shocking to the photojournalism community.
Carson continued to voice his anger, this time tweeting directly to the Sun-Times publisher and editor-in-chief, Jim Kirk. This poor image was of course the result of that ridiculous cull, claimed Carson. No professional photographer could possibly have taken that poor excuse for an image.
. @kirkjim12 too bad the @Suntimes laid off all their photogs. The @chicagotribune front page of the @Cubs is iconic, yours is front focused https://t. co/yOGeLt2yE8
- David Carson (@PDPJ) November 3, 2016Embedded Javascript
Except the problem is that a professional photographer did take the photo that featured in the Sun-Times.
Though the paper has indeed cut its own photography staff, they do still source images from professional sources for major events. The front page photo was taken by veteran Associated Press photographer David J. Phillip. No stranger to sports coverage, since joining the AP he has (by their record) covered 18 Super Bowls, 17 Masters Tournaments, nine Olympic Games, and most importantly, nine World Series.
Rather than any kind of incompetence, it looked like a case of bad luck that Phillip’s camera was simply in the wrong position to get a good angle on the event. However it was still baffling that the paper chose this image (and cropped it so awkwardly) when along with the other AP journalists on hand, Phillip himself had captured some celebration shots superior to the one that ran on the cover.
In a follow up, Carson responded to comments mentioning this fact, saying that he was also blaming a lack of photo editors at the paper:
@wildcatphotog Maybe they should've kept photo editors too.
- David Carson (@PDPJ) November 3, 2016Embedded Javascript
He also wrote a lengthy post in the comments of the PetaPixel article praising Phillip but damning the management that misused and butchered the AP photographer’s work.
/David Carson /Petapixel
The most logical deduction we have for the choice the Sun-Times made was likely that they wanted to have a landscape oriented picture in their format and apathetically felt that particular one would do. However, Carson also has a very valid point. When newspapers get rid of all professional staff with professional training, they will miss out on making the moments that matter really stand out.
. digitalrev.com2016-11-5 03:00