Illustration becomes journalism when it takes responsibility for showing what the reporting knows. A courtroom sketch is not there because the page needs texture. It is there because the public has a right to see a proceeding that cameras cannot enter. A diagram is not decoration when it explains a route, a machine, a wound, a building, a chain of command, or a hidden system.
The best illustrative work does not pretend that drawing is neutral. It uses line, emphasis, scale, labels, and omission with discipline. A cutaway can reveal a system, but it can also simplify too much. A reconstructed scene can clarify testimony, but it can also turn partial knowledge into confident theatre. A portrait can protect identity, but it can also flatten a person into type.
The editor's job is to make the truth status of the image legible. What did the artist see? What came from a document? What came from multiple interviews? What is symbolic? What is unknown? When the answer is visible, illustration stops being ornament and becomes a reporting instrument.
