Words and Pictures

October 27, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston
Cross-posted at Sociological Images

Newspapers report facts – thing that actually happened.  They run photos of things that actually happened.  They don’t make stuff up.  But they do choose which facts to report, and they do choose which photos to run.    Usually the two are congruent. 

But not always.  Wonkette ran this photo of a page from the Washington Post. 

Wonkette and other sites have contrasted the photo with this video of a cop deliberately firing a tear gas canister at close range directly at a group of demonstrators who had come to aid of someone who had been hit in the head with a tear gas canister.

But what’s also noteworthy is the contrast between the photo (nice cop, nice kitty, nothing violent happening here) and the Post’s own lede:   “Police fired tear gas and beanbags. . . .”