About a month or so ago the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper decided to fire all of its 28 professional photographers and provided each of it's reporters with an Apple iPhone. These writers and reporters were instantly "promoted" to photojournalists with the responsibility of taking their own pictures for the stories they were reporting on. They were given a short course on "iPhone photography basics" and let loose.
The results are as the picture above, which shows a professional photographer's pic in a rival newspaper as opposed to the one taken by the Apple iPhone toting Chicago Sun-Times newspaper about the same event. As a photojournalist myself I can safely say that a DSLR is not equal to a smartphone camera and while you can get good shots with the Apple iPhone, you either have to be very lucky or a pretty good photographer in the first place. The impact to the newspaper's reputation and credibility has no doubt been affected. It also proves that this rather costly experiment isn't something you should do just because you can. Check out the other Chicago Sun-Times Apple iPhone shots at this Tumblr site and judge for yourself.
COMMENTS