Photojournalism Ethics: Awareness, Authenticity, and Accuracy

Please contact journalismnow@thomsonfoundation.org if you are having difficulties enrolling into this course

Welcome to the course Photojournalism Ethics: Awareness, Authenticity, and Accuracy!

This course is designed especially for photojournalists and documentary photographers to explore the ethics of their practice. It follows from the primer course The Photographer's Ethical Toolkit that introduced the basic principles in photography ethics. There are two other courses in the Photojournalism Ethics series: Empathy, Dignity, and Power and Impact, Intervention, and Injury.

This course is divided into six sections:

• Section 1 provides an overview of the course and introduces the course trainer and photography experts.
• Section 2 discusses the basics of ethics in photojournalism and documentary photography.
• Section 3 explains the three essential kinds of awareness that photographers need to develop. 
• Section 4 explores the potential barriers to obtaining authenticity in our photographs. 
• Section 5 discusses the meaning and value of accuracy in photography.
• Section 6 summarises the key points covered in the course and provides a list of takeaway questions to apply in your photography practice.

Each section will have at least one exercise for you to apply the concepts that we discuss in the course. In these activities you will be graded on your engagement with the activities rather than the "correctness" of your answers. Please respond to questions honestly in order to gain the most out of the exercises!

Additionally, you will be part of an online forum where you able to access additional updated material and discuss ethical scenarios with your colleagues.

Joining us in this course are photographers Tammy Law and David Degner.

The total course duration is 4 hours, and you can complete it across multiple sessions.

Written by the Photography Ethics Centre.
Produced by Thomson Foundation.
All rights reserved.