Reuters Goes to All JPGs

Michael Zhang at PetaPixel is reporting that Reuters has issued a directive to all its photojournalists to only submit images that were shot as JPGs in the camera – no more raw files allowed. (Side note: Why do we always capitalize RAW? It’s not an acronym so far as I can tell.)

Why would the wire service want to give up on the quality advantages of starting from a raw file? Well, speed is the obvious answer – JPGs write faster, download faster, open faster and don’t require any specialized conversion software. But their secondary reason is ethics.

They’ve reached a point where they no longer trust raw images. Which is horrifyingly sad, isn’t it? And insisting on SOOC JPGs (that’s straight out of camera, if you’re curious) or maybe minimally toned and cropped images to fight ethical issues isn’t going to help – you can lie just as easily before the image is made as after.

The core issue here is now trust – Reuters doesn’t appear to trust their contributors (freelancers are mentioned specifically*). And, once you’ve reached that point, no technology policy in the world will help you.

The loss of picture editors at agencies and publications has a crippling, cascading effect on the journalism we aspire to commit. Without them, there isn’t a visual voice at the table when stories are developed. Without them, there isn’t an advocate for the usage of good images (and the non-usage of idiotic images). Without them, the relationship between the organization and those who provide coverage is lost. It is way easier to lie to someone you don’t know then to lie to someone you do know.

This isn’t about speed or efficiency, this is the consequence of speed and efficiency.

*UPDATE: Hearing that staffers received the same directive.