"When the eye and the ear compete, the eye wins," Al Tompkins of PoynterOnline advices those in his video story telling class. News organizations should keep this in mind when reporting on recent allegations that Senator McCain has had a romantic relationship with a female lobbyist in a story in the New York Times. No matter what is said in a story Tompkins warns that if a picture accompanies the story it may be worth more to the viewer than the actual story itself. Several different news organizations have decided to do a spin off story on the situation. With these stories instead of posting pictures of McCain and the lobbyist, they have chosen to accompany the stories with happy photos of McCain and his wife. Even though it has not been proven that there was no romantic relationship yet, it seems news organizations are taking McCain's side on the issue by using photographs that imply he has a great relationship with his wife, therefore implying that the allocations must be false. As Tompkins warns, readers may see that happy picture of him and his wife and assume that there wasn't a romantic relationship with the lobbyist, when that may not be the case. Tompkins also points out that if there was a picture of McCain and the lobbyist together than without reading the story some audiences might assume that he is guilty. For this reason, designers should be very careful about what photos they post next to stories since they could impact the reader more than the actual text. Especially in stories like this that could be implying whether someone is guilty or not.
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