This paper argues that photojournalists can be regarded as a network of trusted witnesses who collectively provide testimony and evidence from a wide and varied set of situations. The practice of photojournalists and documentary photographers therefore arguably serves to enhance the moral memory of society by providing it with imaginative, emotional and evidentiary triggers to spur debate, discussion, retrospection, understanding and empathy. Photojournalists detect global patterns of abuse, and by bearing witness to social injustices, they individually and collectively form vital links in the chain of information about the world. The value of photography should not be seen in isolation, as if its effects, positive or negative, occurred in a contextual vacuum, divorced from the impacts and effects of other related media and communication forms. It must be seen as part of an ecology of evidence, where a variety of sources can be triangulated to provide a more nuanced interpretation of a situation.
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