Photography Shaping News Organizations

Someone once told me, “Pictures tell the stories words cannot simply grasp”. I would like to believe that is true. Photography is one of the most powerful platforms to convey a message. With photography, people can evoke emotions and story tell without using any words. In today’s society, photos have become a crucial part of most news stories. This week I decided to take a look at two news organizations and compare how they use photography throughout their websites.

For my first news organization I chose WGN News, a Chicago Station. When I was younger, I can remember hearing WGN News playing in the background as I ate my breakfast before school. WGN News is a very popular station most Chicagoans watch. As I opened their website I was greeted by a large landscape photo with the major story WGN wanted its readers to focus on. Beneath the first story I saw photo after photo. Every story had a large image above the headline. The photos were clearly taken from the scene of whichever news story the station was portraying. I thought the quality of the pictures could have been improved. Also, the photographers could have been more creative with their shots. I was very underwhelmed when going through the photos for the news stories. Overall, none of the photos really impressed me. I did like the way WGN uses the photo for each story as another headline almost. It draws the reader in by providing information that someone might to get from the headline itself.

For the second news organization, I went national and chose ABC News. Every night at six p.m., my father would go into the family room and turn on ABC World News. We would all watch the news as a family after we ate dinner. It became apart of our routine, a tradition more or less. This is why I chose to look at ABC News. At a first glance, ABC News has the latest headlines off to the left of the page. There are no pictures with these headlines. In the center there is a slideshow of pictures with headlines of the stories the pictures are illustrating. As you scroll down there is a similar setup to WGN News with the photos and headlines. Each individual photo added a bit more to the story it was representing. The photos used on the ABC News website were crisp,clear and certain ones had great angles. There were a variety of photos and some shots were more creative than others.

I personally thought ABC News did a better job with the layout of the photos and the page itself. ABC News provided the audience with more detailed shots that varied. Photography in the news world is becoming more dominant. It speaks volumes that a photo can alter a persons feelings and can convey important messages. There are millions of stories waiting to be told. Even more important, the photos that can be captured to make those stories even more powerful.