Book review of Under the White Gaze: Solving the Problem of Race and Representation in Canadian Journalism

I ssues around race and representation-often dismissed by some on the right as 'identity politics' in the context of populist discourse around governmental policies that regulate mobility and opportunity-are central in Canadian journalism.Debates around class reductionism or right-wing nationalist agendas that exclude ethnic "others" highlight the complexities of inclusion in media narratives.While dynamic initiatives are emerging to confront traditional Euro-centric approaches to journalism-from a new course at the University of Toronto's School of Continuing Studies exploring decolonization through the lens of Indigenous, Black, francophone and Global South communities, to the launch of the new Mary Ann Shadd Cary Centre for Journalism and Belonging at Carleton University-scholarly literature on the intersection of representation, intersectionality, and decolonization in shaping journalism ethics and practices remain relatively rare.Recent essential works that are on class reading lists already include: Desmond Cole's The Skin We 're In (2022), Duncan McCue's Decolonizing Journalism (2022), and Candis Callison and Mary Lynn Young's Reckoning: Journalism's Limits and Possibilities (2020).Now added to the list is Christopher Cheung's Under the White Gaze (2024), which references each of the above books.As a Chinese-Canadian journalist for one of Canada's earliest online news sources, BC-based The Tyee, Cheung's name is familiar to educators and journalists nationally after The Toronto Star published his awardwinning essay, "Blind Spots," in 2022.Cheung