Reuters has published more than 14 million photographs over the past four decades, which makes In the Moment: 40 Years of Reuters Photojournalism a particularly deep dive into recent history in image form. “News photography is one of the most powerful and competitive forms of journalism,” the book begins. The subtext of the book’s preface makes photojournalism’s importance clear: AI is threatening the media, as are increasingly partisan and untrustworthy news sources. In the Moment draws a parallel between this current crisis in journalism with the one it was born from in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher was remaking Britain, the Cold War was raging on and images were becoming as vital as words. It is against this backdrop, the book observes, that Reuters committed itself to photojournalism, with the company announcing: “We’re going to be in pictures.” In keeping with that theme, the majority of this book’s information comes from its photographs, with oral histories and brief summaries of major events tacked on. This proves the integrity of Reuters’ assertion that photos can tell complete stories. One spread shows a black-and-white photograph of a man in an airplane wearing a paper bag on his head, pointing a rifle directly at the camera. It is uncanny and haunting, especially as you see the blood spilling out from the airplane’s exit door. The next two pages detail the incident the image captures: the Beirut hijacking of 1985. The photographer, Frederic Neema, recalls the incident in an extensive quote just below the photo. “The bullets went above our heads and hit the wall behind us,” he writes. “I ducked and kept on shooting.” More of Neema’s photographs, along with another Reuters photographer’s shots and images of the story on multiple newspapers’ front pages, show the terrifying immensity of the situation. In the Moment is organized chronologically in 10-year sections, and each seems even more intense than the last. The concluding images of the Israel-Hamas war—which garnered a Pulitzer Prize for the organization in 2024—is a stark reminder of the importance of boots-on-the-ground photojournalism.
