Photodocumentary

Karin E. Becker
Photojournalism and the tabloid press

• Despite the presence in daily and weekly press in the past century, photography is rarely admitted to settings in which journalism is discussed, investigated and taught.
• Photographs are used as criteria for evaluating, and ultimately dismissing, tabloid newspapers as ‘merely’ popular.
• History of photography and the tabloid press began with three distinct types of publications: first the elite periodical press with its established tradition of illustration; then in the tabloid press with more popular appeal; and almost simultaneously, in weekly supplements to the daily press.  
• The idea that a picture of an actual event could be treated as news by creditable institutions is contradictory because photography was constructed as a purely visual medium, therefore is bypasses the intellectual processes that journalism will address and cultivate.   Photography is more immediate, direct appeal is seen as a threat to reason and to the journalistic institution’s Enlightenment heritage.
• In early 1840’s illustrated magazines were launched almost at the same time in several European countries.   These magazines were all using wood engravings to illustrate news.  
• Well-known artists were hired to “cover” events, and competed to be the first with their reports.   For example, Leslie’s, on the north Americas first publications sent an illustrator to hanging of the anti slavery movement leader John Brown in 1859 where he was then sent back to New York to meet the press deadline.   The text with the engraving stated it was from “a sketch by our own artist taken on the spot, invoking the authority of the eye-witness.
• At the time wood engravings where preferred over photographs because the camera was considered to stiff and too dependant on luck of the machine. In contrast, the hand drawn image that reflected the artist’s perspective and the engravers craft.  
• Photographs where used frequently used as a... [continues]

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