With easy, personable prose and an honest, thoughtful approach, Christopher Cheung brings depth and humanity to a topic too often dismissed under the broad label of “diversity.” Early on, he acknowledges his own susceptibility to the white gaze, highlighting a crucial first step toward meaningful change in the industry: the willingness of journalists to self-reflect and turn the microphone on themselves. By critiquing his own reporting, he models the humility he asks of his readers: “I treated white Canadians of European descent as the default viewpoint,” he writes. “They were the baseline. They were the ‘us’ and everyone else was the ‘other.’” Importantly, Cheung points out that these narratives didn’t provoke concern from readers, editors, or even himself, because they are so normalized. The harm here, he adds, is that such practices lead us to believe we are challenging the dominance of whiteness in journalism.

Read the full review in the Spring 2025 issue of Facts & Frictions

The post Review of Christopher Cheung’s Under the White Gaze: Solving the Problem of Race and Representation in Canadian Journalism first appeared on J-Source.