When the front pages on the results of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary both featured small photos of the Republican winner and large photos of the Democratic winner, I knew it would be only a matter of time before someone would accuse The Courant of pushing its liberal agenda.
The gentleman who rang me Wednesday sounded as if my attempts to explain to him the dynamics of dominant images and picture placement were just as predictable as his complaint and were feeble.
“I knew that would be the answer I would get,” he said. He argued that the pictures of John McCain and Hillary Clinton should have been the same size and side-by-side. In other words, balance and fairness should outweigh the concerns of page design in election coverage.
Nonetheless, I continue to try to bridge the gap between what readers say they expect from the newspaper and what editors consider as they compose it.
It seemed to me that the news staff had found solid ground in displaying the Republicans and Democrats in the caucus and in the primary. The Republicans were in the coveted above-the-fold space. The larger photos of the Democrats were below the fold.
Explaining the considerations that went into composing A1 last Tuesday, Assistant Managing Editor Paul Spencer wrote in his nightly memo to the staff, “Trying to balance the play of photos and stories between the parties is like solving a quadratic equation. To me, the Democratic story seemed marginally bigger because Clinton’s victory defied the polls from the past few days, and the result came later in the evening. We returned to the same formula from Iowa, playing the Republican photo higher but smaller. But there are a lot of ways to look at this, and we need to be alert and maintain balance in the next few primaries.”
Only days before the New Hampshire vote, Jeremy Gilbert, managing editor for innovation at Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, complimented The Courant’s presentation of the Iowa caucus results.
“Unusual photo choice and balance the [Barack] Obama image is much more dynamic and is played larger, but well below the smaller image of [Mike] Huckabee,” Gilbert wrote. “This balancing act works, playing the smaller photo higher on the page to offset a much larger, more emotional photo down-page.”
In an e-mail, he explained further:
I would urge people to look beyond just the size of the boxes. There are several other factors that help determine whether images are “equal”:
Composition, i.e. how many people are in the frame?
Cropping, i.e. what size are the candidates’ heads?
Angle. Where is the photographer standing relative to the subject of the photo?
Placement. Where is the photo on the page?
Headlines. What headline type is around or near the photo?
All of these factors, and probably more, affect how the photos are perceived. Two equal size photos can be very unequal because of these other factors. Alternately, two photos unequal in size can be made more “equal” by these same factors.
The Courant’s graphics director, Melanie Shaffer, is well aware of the challenges of covering the primaries.
“We take very seriously where we place every story, every photo, every element as a sort of road map for the reader,” Shaffer said.
“Our job is to guide the reader through the important events of the day, while maintaining fairness and accuracy. This is a nightmare of a challenge when dealing with dueling parties. While the images are different sizes, we intended for their play to give them equal weight, equal importance.”
I won’t deny that there are liberal-thinking journalists roaming the newsroom, but professional ethics dictate that personal politics have no place in decision-making as the news pages come together and good journalists are conscientious about meeting that standard.
If you’d like to see the process yourself, send an e-mail or give me a call.
