Bearing Witness: The Power of Visual Journalism in Trump’s Second Term
Illustration by Donny Evans
Politics isn’t my usual beat. As a music photographer and a regular contributor to Paste, I have spent years documenting the communion between artist and audience—the electric moments that define live performance. But today, my lens shifts from the stage to the nation itself, to a defining moment for American journalism and the existential threats it faces.
In a dimly lit detention center, a child presses her face against a chain-link fence, her expression a mixture of fear and resignation. The image is heartbreaking, but more than that, it is revelatory. It forces us to confront the world as it is, not as we are told it should be. But in America today, those who capture such moments—those who document reality in its rawest form—find themselves under siege.
The story of democracy is, at its core, the story of truth—who defines it, who distorts it, and who dares to bear witness to it.
With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, journalism stands at a crossroads. His first administration waged an open campaign against the press, branding journalists as the “enemy of the people,” dismissing unfavorable coverage as “fake news,” and systematically undermining public trust in the Fourth Estate. Now, emboldened by his political resurgence, Trump’s second term is not merely a continuation, but an escalation.
This is not a matter of partisanship; it is a matter of history. The most effective way to control a society is to control its perception of truth. And for regimes seeking to consolidate power, the camera lens has always been a particular threat. Just look at this week’s harrowing development of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk and how the image of masked thugs snatching her off the street has resonated across America, and inspired an “emergency protest” that brought out thousands to Somerville in a matter of hours after she was taken.
The Power—and Peril—of Bearing Witness
The visual record has long shaped public consciousness. The bloodied body of Emmett Till, revealed to the world in an open casket, forced Americans to confront the realities of racial terror. The image of Phan Thi Kim Phúc—the “Napalm Girl”—stripped away the political abstractions of the Vietnam War. The footage of George Floyd’s murder ignited a global reckoning on racial injustice.
Mamie Till, her fiancé Gene Mobley, looks over 14-year-old son Emmett Till’s mutilated corpse after being abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 (Wikimedia Commons)
Phan Thi Kim Phúc, center, running down a road naked near Trảng Bàng after a South Vietnam Air Force napalm attack (Nick Ut/The Associated Press/Wikimedia Commons)
Frame from witness video, showing officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck (Darnella Frazier/Facebook post/Wikimedia Commons)
These moments changed history not because they were told, but because they were seen. And for that reason, those in power have long sought to suppress them.
Authoritarian regimes throughout history have understood this well. In Nazi Germany, the state tightly controlled imagery, crafting propaganda to manufacture public perception. In the Soviet Union, inconvenient figures were erased from photographs, their existence stricken from the official record. In China, images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre remain so restricted that an entire generation has grown up unaware of its reality.
1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, the People’s Liberation Army tried to pull this female student out of the protest rally (Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons)
America is not China. It is not Nazi Germany. But to dismiss these historical lessons outright is to ignore the unmistakable playbook already in motion.
