Visual Journalism and Verification at War

Considering the visual coverage of the war in Ukraine, this book provides critical insights into how newsrooms make use of visual materials, how visuals partake in journalistic storytelling in a modern wartime context, and how visual journalism practices affect the news media's role as arbiter of accuracy and ethics. Based on a mixed-methods study, including analyses of selected visually driven news stories and interviews with media professionals in Norwegian and Swedish national media outlets houses, this book examines the news media's approach to the visual coverage of the war in Ukraine following Russian invasion in 2022. The work is theoretically underpinned by ongoing boundary work within journalism, and editorial negotiations over issues such as verification, source criticism, and trust; witnessing and ways of seeing; and ethical gatekeeping in photojournalism. At a juncture of rising concerns over AI, public distrust, and propaganda, this study adds a real-time aspect to these debates and reveals challenges as well as emerging strategies in the unfolding coverage. Furthermore, the comparative Scandinavian context serves to highlight points of tension between the global and the local; between those newsrooms relying on global image brokers and those conducting their own in-house reporting. Written for researchers and advanced students of Visual Journalism and Conflict Reporting, this book is a timely intervention.

Maria Nilsson is Professor of Journalism in the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research interests include visual storytelling, newsroom routines, the ethics of witnessing, visual representations of crises, and the history of photography. Her current research focuses on visual verification practices and disinformation and the truth claims of journalism in crisis coverage. Anne Hege Simonsen is Associate Professor and Head of Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. Her research interests include visual journalism, global and international reporting, climate crisis and environment coverage, media and minorities, physical walls and boundaries, and non-fiction writing. She has written, edited, and contributed to several text books in journalism for the Norwegian market.

List of figues List of tables Acknowledgements 1. Disrupting the boundaries of photojournalism at war A background to the full-scale invasion Previous research on the war in Ukraine Photojournalism at war, witnessing and visual meaning-making Visual verification, trust and truth Our empirical study Empirical focus Methods Chapter outline Funding and approvals A note on our collaboration 2. Bridges and flows Witnessing, networks and flows Witnessing outbreak: Time, space and production in the field Summary: random and deliberate coverage Witnessing atrocities: the cases of Bucha and Borodyanka Witnessing through tropes and conventions: Commemorating the invasion Chapter summary: Witnessing through bridges and flows 3. The war next door: The perspectives of editors and photojournalists Being there The gap between seeing and showing Safety, bias and trust Chapter summary: About the coverage of the war next door 4. Truth, trust (and everything in between) A hierarchy of trust Skilling up (digital forensics) Chapter summary: Fact-checking as a new genre 5. Reflections on the Norwegian and Swedish visual coverage of the war in Ukraine References Index