Take better Google Street View screenshots

A technical primer for journalists and bloggers

This image is from Google Street View — as are all the images in this piece.

Are you a reporter? Fed-up because your editor wants you to publish eight pieces of content every day and won’t let you leave your desk? Can’t get photos from that neighbourhood dispute or cat-stuck-up-a-tree story because all the photographers have been laid off? Using Google Street View instead?

Then please, we beg you, do it properly.

There’s something intrinsically cringe and low-tech about using Street View grabs in local news articles, like the people who type “F” in the comments to follow Facebook posts.

You have to crop in, avoiding all the buttons and UI elements, so your image either looks really tiny or horribly glitchy. Also those road name labels? They’re a dead giveaway that you couldn’t get your own photo and we live in an age where local reporters are valued less than bin-men.

All these images were taken from local news reports on regional newspaper websites.