News Photo Abuse

Really dislike the trend (especially egregious on Talking Points Memo and Huffington Post) of having a photo, usually unrelated to a story, of a politician smiling or frowning depending on the day's news about that pol. It seems mainstream-media-fake, or even photoshop-fake. If the photographer captures a pic of a candidate grimacing at the precise moment of being told "you lost the recount," fine, that's honest and accurate. But for Josh Marshall to tell an intern, "get me a pic of so-and-so looking super grumpy" is just phony baloney. If you need visual interest to spice up your blog page, use a cartoon.