By Jonathan Aguilar

Journalism suffers when visuals are not taken seriously, or they are seen as secondary to written reporting. The Chicago Sun-Times a major publication in the third largest media market laid off their entire photojournalism staff in 2013, and their visual journalism has suffered ever since. The staff that they laid off included over 20 photographers and a Pulitzer prize winning photojournalist. After these layoffs occurred reporters were tasked with not only conducting interviews on the scene but were also told to shoot photos for their stories. This led to a decrease in quality of photographs produced by the Sun-Times. If a major publication felt that photojournalists were so unimportant to their work, then there must be a misunderstanding of what these journalists actually do.

In newsrooms across the country photojournalism is seen as a service instead of a type of reporting. While talking to a visual journalist from a major Chicago publication she opened up about how even at top media outlets they are seen as a service desk. She has to try every day to ensure that her team is treated as journalists and not just as accessory pieces to written reporting. Professional visual journalists are struggling to get the type of respect they deserve as storytellers.

Even at smaller publication visual journalists are still seen as secondary to reporters. In certain newsrooms, there are systems in place that allow reporters or editors to fill out a request form for a visual element to be created for an article. In the system, the reporter is supposed to describe what a story is about so that a photojournalist can go out and shoot whatever the story is. But often times the form is overlooked and visual journalist are left scrambling trying to figure out what angle they should focus on for their photo. If visual journalists are given the opportunity to create unique photos, then they will be able to add more depth to stories. It will also help media outlets get away from superficial images that so often plague newspapers. The problem is that in smaller publications where young journalists go to learn they are not being taught about the importance of photographs and the value they add to articles. By not teaching young journalists the value of good visuals they end up not having a deep appreciation for the power that strong visuals can bring.

As important as photographs and other visuals are to journalism, they are not focused on that heavily in journalism school. At DePaul, there is one professor who teaches photojournalism. While Robin Hoecker is an amazing professor who has elevated the visual journalism students at DePaul she should not have to be doing so alone. In a school that is putting out such great work in many different facets of journalism the importance of visuals needs to be emphasized. As great as written reporting can be standing on its own combing it with good visuals will make a piece unbelievably stronger.

In age where everyone is constantly scrolling through their phones something needs to catch a reader’s attention. By allowing visual journalist to tell stories through photos and not using them as accessories for other journalist’s articles it will lead to more well-rounded reporting and more intriguing articles.

For whatever reason, visual journalists were seen as expendable and many papers have lost great photo teams because of that fact. But now media outlets like the Chicago Sun-Times after suffering for so long with terrible visuals are starting to hire photojournalists once again. This shows that journalism and visuals go hand in hand.