Choosing Graphic Visuals: How Picture Editors Incorporate Emotion and Personal Experience Into Decision Making

Abstract

The influence of deeply personal, sometimes even traumatic, experiences on editorial choices is rarely studied. In-depth interviews indicate that photography editors, as secondhand witnesses to some of the most graphic trauma experienced by humans, are not handcuffed by deeply felt emotion, nor are they left emotionally numb by repeated exposure to tragedy. Rather, the editorial decision-making process is an intricate combination of emotion and intellect more complex than most gatekeeping literature suggests.