Photographer Kenneth Jarecke recently posted something quite interesting on his blog. He argues that online content is starved for quality, specifically referencing Vanity Fair’s list of the top 25 news photographs as a ‘terrible excuse for content’.

But according to Jarecke, the Vanity Fair website is not alone in its misguided efforts. ‘A dozen different big-time magazines’ are at fault as well.

Jarecke’s view is that online advertising is simply about the number of views and clicks, which to him explains Vanity Fair’s top 25 list.

‘Right now, publishers (and the editors that work for them) are attempting to create online content that moves pages through your browser. That’s how the money is counted. It isn’t measured by the quality of the content, just the dispose-ability,’ writes Jarecke.

He blames Vanity Fair for its poor choice of photographs, which are documents of monumental events throughout history. ‘Most of the images look like they were chosen by word people. That’s not how photography works. Sometimes you can discuss something without actually showing what a word person would define as the key moment.’

In other words, instead of a direct shot of Martin Luther King delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech, Jarecke would prefer an image of the circumstances leading up to that moment in history, which can have more significant meaning.

He believes that the explanation of Vanity Fair’s choices lies in the fact that online content needs to be ‘cheap and readily available’, as editors do not have the time or money to conduct a thorough search or pay too much for an image.

‘At some point advertisers will demand that they are charged by how long someone keeps their eyes on your page, not by how many times their ad flashes by. Until that time, I don’t see the quality improving,' comments Jarecke.

Posted by Deborah Sterescu