To See and Be Seen

[1] NCA reviewers called the book “a signature achievement in understanding the process of media production and the ethics of photojournalism.”[2] The work unpacks the environmental, social, cultural, and psychological aspects that shape news images and explores through ethnographic methods how visual journalists work in the field and how those visually featured in the news react to the depictions made of them.

Writing in the Newspaper Research Journal, Dr. Matthew Haught, assistant chair and associate professor at the University of Memphis, said the book “offers much-needed context to everyday journalism” and characterized the work as sitting between Ken Kobré’s practitioner-focused “Photojournalism: The Professionals’ Approach” and Susan Sontag’s philosophical “On Photography” book.

Thomson’s book comes at a time when those who teach journalism need to focus deeply on ethics and regaining public confidence, to be both sources and consumers, as they do on the technical proficiencies of the field.The book was also reviewed in the International Journal of Press/Politics by Katharina Lobinger, vice-dean for the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society at the Università della Svizzera Italiana.

The American Press Institute interviewed Thomson about this in 2020 in order to better understand how journalists and news organizations can build trust through more context and transparency around images and better journalist-subjects interactions.

[6] Thomson noted that issues of consent, permission, and privacy are often intertwined with people’s reactions to news visuals and offered several recommendations for journalists on how to improve their interactions with those they cover.