Judging Photojournalism: The Metajournalistic Discourse of Judges at the Best of Photojournalism and Pictures of the Year Contests

ABSTRACT

This study promotes how discussions during photojournalism award judging can be used as metajournalistic discourse to gain insight about the definition, boundaries, and legitimization of the field. Journalism awards signal value, but the deliberation process offers richer insight via the judges’ comments. This study explores that process in two stages through discourse analysis of publicly-available video of judging rounds from two photojournalism competitions, Best of Photojournalism (BOP) and Pictures of the Year International (POYi). The first stage explores the ways in which judges talk about the photos and develops a framework for future analysis of contest judging. The second stage analyzes this discourse. Findings indicate that storytelling and emotion are key defining and legitimizing aspects of photojournalism, photojournalist’s actions and gear serve as boundary devices and the ongoing conversation about problematic misrepresentation in photojournalism is recognized but needs more emphasis.

KEYWORDS:

• Photojournalism
• metajournalistic discourse
• discourse analysis
• Pictures of the Year International
• Best of Photojournalism
• national press photographers association

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.facebook.com/PicturesOfTheYear/.

2 https://nppa.org/bop-still-photojournalism-deliberations.

3 Based on the author’s observation, as judge age/gender/race identities were not provided.

4 The Best of Photojournalism competition included an online pre-screening round for images, which involved a different group of judges and did not include deliberation.

5 https://www.cpoy.org/index.php?s=Podcast.

6 Typically, open to the public but not recorded (M. Schwarz, personal communication, 12 Nov 2020). However, during the week-long 2020 Seminar, held online due to COVID-19, hour-long recorded portions of the contest judging process were posted nightly for attendees to watch (https://www.photojournalism.org/2020).

7 Both competitions have flat entrance fees. BOP entry is free for members (membership ranges from $75–145/year) and $75 for non-members. POYi entry is $50, with two premier categories that require an additional $50 to enter.