‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’: Analysing everyday photography in The New York Times, 2000 to 2020

Abstract

Over the past two decades, <em>The New York Times</em> have increasingly incorporated visual experimentation in their use of photography, employing art and design strategies for what were once more conventional editorial subjects. The long-held hierarchy between text and image has been disrupted, with images taking the lead. Employing quantitative and qualitative methods, my study examines the <em>Times</em>’ ‘front page’—an archaic artefact that remains an intense source of scrutiny for editors despite the digital transition—with a dataset related to 240 front pages from January 2000 to January 2020. This ‘image-first’ approach, however, is not reflected in its digital archive, and obstructions to ‘reading’ the image reflect a wider, unstable financialisation of culture that has equally intensified over the last two decades.