My brother and I have had an ongoing conversation about how it sometimes appears that news organizations pick the worst possible photo of an individual to use for a story.
The photo of Eliot Spitzer utilized by many news outlets after he announced his resignation is a prime example. I borrowed this one from a Christian Science Monitor article:
If he sucks in his bottom lip much more he’ll swallow his chin.
I think that’s probably the best example in recent memory, save the Orange County Sheriff’s Department booking photo of Lisa Nowak after her little kerfuffle with her lover-boy’s other girlfriend:
That, my friends, is a priceless image if there ever was one.
One of the more fascinating studies we talked about in a college class I had was the use of images in the media. The pictures used tend to fit the political or moral views of the paper publishing the story. An example, the clearist example I can remember is a picture of Linda Tripp I saw in one newspaper. The paper, in the past, had made it clear it supported Bill Clinton. When the scandal broke regarding Monica Lewinsky, she was a central figure in the case. The picture in the paper was taken when she was confronting someone who was heckling her. It shows her pointing her finger, with a scowl on her face. She looked like a mean vindictive witch. However, all the pictures of Lewinsky showed her as clean cut, usually her high school yearbook photo.
The point is, the photos used in newspapers and web sites tend to fit the particular leanings of the publisher or editor of the paper.