The tumblr page SunTimes/DarkTimes is chronicling the photo journalism of the Chicago Sun-Times after the paper infamously laid off its entire full-time photography staff.  Instead, the Sun-Times wants its journalists to do what teenagers around America do and use their iPhones.  Who knows how long the training was for "selfie in the bathroom mirror."

The evidence of this disaster is most evident in a comparison between the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune as chronicled by STDT on June 26th in the wake of the Blackhawks celebrating their Stanley Cup.  Just have a glance and see which looks like an actual newspaper and which looks like a bad photoshop…

csttoews
tribune

Yikes.  You can't fool us with your GIANT HEADLINE FONT Chicago Sun-Times.  The Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup and that is your defining image?  A dreary Jonathan Toews carrying the Stanley Cup down the street like it's a bag of groceries?

This is what happens when a major market newspaper turns their photography department into a bad Facebook album.  Hopefully this is an indication to newspapers around the country.  It may be a dying industry, but please don't hasten its demise by scrapping good pictures.  Sometimes they're better than words.

[SunTimes/DarkTimes]

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