Photojournalism Essay Intro

Photojournalism: An Introduction Photojournalism is a form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. Photojournalism is often understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term may also refer to video clips such as those used in broadcast journalism. This form of journalism is distinguished from documentary photography, street photography, celebrity photography and other related branches of photography as the photojournalists follow a rigid ethical framework that demands the work be both honest and impartial. Photojournalists capture images in order to present unbiased facts in creating a journalistic piece of artwork. There are numerous iconic photojournalistic photos that have captured important historical

With the exception of Lord Horatio Nelson’s funeral in 1806 being illustrated in The Times; the first weekly illustrated newspaper, the Illustrated London News, was printed in 1842 (1). The Illustrated London News’s primary photographer was Roger Fenton—often considered the grandfather of photojournalism. In 1840, Fenton graduated from the University of Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After graduation from University, Fenton studied to become a painter; however in 1851 he became intrigued with photography after visiting the Great Exhibition in London and in 1855 he began working for the Illustrated London News. Fenton often captured pictures that documented the effects of the war on the troops. His work in photojournalism laid the groundwork for modern

Online news websites began to appear in the 1990s (12). In fact, by 1996 most news outlets had developed their own online presence (12). In 2008, “for the first time, more people said they got their national and international news from the internet than from newspapers” (13). Just as television news broadcasting challenged photojournalism in the 1960’s, the internet presently challenges today’s traditional news sources, such as television and newspapers. Unfortunately, just as the photojournalists lost income to television, many newspapers are now losing their advertising income to internet