We need great photojournalism more than ever

 Via Amateur Photographer

August 14, 2022

OPINION: WE NEED GREAT PHOTOJOURNALISM MORE THAN EVER

Deputy Editor Geoff Harris reflects on the worrying trend of people simply shunning bad news – and what it could mean for photojournalism, documentary and news photography.

As somebody who believes passionately in the importance of hard-hitting documentary and news photography, I’m worried. A survey, recently shared by the BBC, reveals that a lot of people are turning off from the news as it makes them depressed.

According to the report, from the respected Reuters Institute, almost four in 10 of those surveyed say they often or sometimes avoid the news, a sizeable jump from 29% in 2017.

It also found the number of people avoiding news over the past five years has doubled in the UK (46%) and Brazil (54%).

Considering the devastation that the corrupt Bolsonaro regime is inflicting on the Amazon rainforests and indigenous tribes in Brazil, this is even more concerning, but I digress.

Photojournalism tells the truth about what is happening

When you think of some of the most influential news images in the history of photography – Dorothea Lange’s record of dirt-poor US migrants, or Nick Ut’s Napalm Girl photo – yes, they are upsetting and depressing.

This is not usually because photographers are trying to make viewers feel bad or have any kind of agenda (Ut certainly wasn’t against the anti-communist South Vietnamese forces who dropped the napalm), it’s because they want to tell the truth about what is happening around them. If more and more people are actively turning away from the news in order to ‘protect their mental health,’ where does that leave the next generation of photojournalists? Will they still be able to make a living?

Then there is the environment.

I’ve been lucky enough to interview a lot of great nature photographers over the years, including Frans Lanting and Joel Sartore, and most still believe that their photography can help protect endangered species or habitats through awareness-raising.

But what if an increasing number of potential viewers of these images just throw their hands up in the air and switch to cute puppy videos on YouTube or silly dance routines on TikTok?

Indeed, another recent report from OFCOM shows that TikTok is the fastest-growing news source for UK adults. Of course, not all content on TikTok is trivial, but it’s an illuminating and concerning trend.

Then there are the unhinged conspiracy theorists who accuse much mainstream news of being fake, following in the footsteps of cynical politicians like Donald Trump. Predictably, attacks on news journalists and photographers have risen exponentially.

We need great photojournalism more than ever

We need great photojournalism more than ever, as it’s one of the pillars of a free society, where politicians, big business and the military are held accountable. Shackling the press is one of the first things authoritarian regimes do – just ask any photojournalist struggling to tell the truth in China and Russia.

I also think that mental health charities and ‘experts’ should be doing more to dispel this insidious myth that the news is somehow damaging to people’s well-being. Certainly, today’s 24/7 news cycles mean it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, but we can all control how much news we consume, and only consume it from reputable sources. Sticking our head in the sands is no answer.

A few years ago, photojournalists were fretting that the biggest threat facing them was the closure of a lot of print-based media and the increasing use of freelancers and ‘citizen journalists’ by digital outlets. These threats remain, and jobs continue to be lost, but a general turning away from bad news is an even more worrying trend.

As photographers, we should be doing what we can to support and speak up for photojournalists, and of course, getting out there with our cameras ourselves. Stories of death and destruction are not new, but however much they seem to be piling up in 2022, it’s important we all face up to what is going on the world. How else are we going to help to change it?

"the conference will reflect upon on how human rights and individual agency can be promoted and violated through the camera"

Via Jim Johnson at (Notes On) Politics, Theory, and Photography
(Highly recommend that you bookmark this blog)

Call For Papers: Picturing Others: Photography and Human Rights

Picturing Others: Photography and Human Rights
Cardiff, 17-18 January 2013

This 2-day conference will bring together photography practitioners, academic researchers, press officers, journalists and members of community groups to discuss how photographs are used to represent people in situations of conflict or disaster, and to consider the real-world effects that photographic representation can have on the lives of people migrating from one country to another. The conference aims to create an initial forum for on-going dialogue between photographers, media officers, journalists and researchers on photography.

The conference will focus on the ways in which photographs from past times can affect how people are represented today; on the ways in which different sectors use photography to inform or educate; and on how the photographic images used in different sectors communicate with each other and with their publics. The conference will also engage with how people from areas of conflict or disaster view images of themselves by others, and how they use photography themselves. More broadly, the conference will reflect upon on how human rights and individual agency can be promoted and violated through the camera; and the choices that photographers, broadcasters and campaigners make when using photographic images.

We invite paper proposals of 200 words for submission by 8 October 2012 from all those with an interest in photography and human rights. Decisions on proposals will be communicated by e-mail by 22 October 2012. Proposals should be sent to the organising committee at migration@cf.ac.uk and may discuss any aspect of the questions suggested below.

We warmly invite presentations taking a practical, personal or theoretical approach, and referring to any historical period or geographical area. Conference presentations will be of 20 minutes’ length.

Topics for discussion may include, but are not limited to:

• Are there patterns in the ways in which people in conflict or distress elsewhere are represented in photography?
• How do these patterns of representation affect how people who migrate to other countries are perceived and how well they can integrate and settle?
• How do past photographic representations of people from elsewhere link to contemporary photographs of countries in conflict or disaster situations and the way they are presented?
• How do non-photographic media, such as text and radio journalism, affect responses to photographs of other people?
• How do photographed people in situations of conflict or disaster, or in peacetime, interact with their media representations?
• What kinds of images do indigenous media and NGOs use to represent people in situations of conflict or disaster in their own countries and localities?
• What are the decision-making processes used by photographers picturing conflict and disaster?
• How do image the choices made in news media affect how images are used by development organisations or community groups, and vice versa?
• Where migration is concerned, what are the effects of images on perceptions of migrants, on social integration in host countries, and on the resolution of conflicts at home and in host countries?
• How is the educational role that images of others can have connected to issues of wider power relations between the global South and the global North in making, publishing/broadcasting and viewing images?

 Rachael Langford
School of European Languages, Translation and Politics, Cardiff University
Cardiff, Wales, UK
tel +55 2920 875643
Email: langfordre@cf.ac.uk

50 YEARS AGO: THE KENNEDY-NIXON DEBATE LAUNCHES POLITICS INTO THE MEDIA ERA

Paul Schutzer: Kennedy and Nixon Debate with Howard K. Smith as Moderator, September 26, 1960

September 26, 1960 - The first-ever televised presidential debate occurred between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. On 26 September 1960, 70 million U.S. viewers tuned in to watch Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts and Vice President Richard Nixon in the first-ever televised presidential debate. It was the first of four televised "Great Debates" between Kennedy and Nixon. The Many who watched were inclined to say Kennedy 'won' the debate, while those who listened only to the radio thought Nixon did better. Nixon, who declined to use makeup, appeared somewhat haggard looking on TV in contrast to Kennedy

The Great Debates marked television's grand entrance into presidential politics. They afforded the first real opportunity for voters to see their candidates in competition, and the visual contrast was dramatic. In August, Nixon had seriously injured his knee and spent two weeks in the hospital. By the time of the first debate he was still twenty pounds underweight, his pallor still poor. He arrived at the debate in an ill-fitting shirt, and refused make-up to improve his color and lighten his perpetual "5:00 o'clock shadow." Kennedy, by contrast, had spent early September campaigning in California. He was tan and confident and well-rested. Kennedy's practice of looking at the camera when answering the questions -- and not at the journalists who asked them, as Nixon did -- made viewers see him as someone who was talking directly to them and who gave them straight answers. Kennedy's performance showed not only that he was a knowledgeable and credible elected official, but also that he just plain looked better.

The televised Great Debates had a significant impact on voters in 1960, on national elections since, and, indeed, on our concerns for democracy itself. The debates ushered in an era in which television dominated the electoral process.



John F. Kennedy had learned the power of the image, of the visual, from his father, who was for a time a power in the movie business. Joseph P. Kennedy was the first, or among the first, to merge the creation and marketing of the celebrity trade, the tricks of public relations, to the business of politics and governing. With politics aforethought, the founding father had created an archive—still and moving pictures of his children—ready to be used to entice a nation into a cause in the same way they were pulled into movie theaters. There was one thing President Kennedy always had time for: he would spend hours looking at photographs of himself and his family. That was neither narcissism nor pride to Jack Kennedy, but recognition of polities as a show of fleeting images. In the mostly black-and-white world of the early 1960s, the right picture in the right place duplicating itself forever was worth a great deal more than any thousand words.



Audio/Visual show of the debate here.