Accusations of bias abound in presidential primary presentation
The Hartford Courant has been criticized for its page one photo edit the day following the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and last Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary.
Karen Hunter, The Courant’s Reader Representative, wrote in her Sunday column:
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.
…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.
And Hunter is absolutely correct. However, it’s also a simple fact that readers aren’t always going to see our pages the way we intend them. Especially those readers who are looking for things to complain about; looking for ways to “prove” a bias they claim we have.
Here’s the front from Jan. 4, the day after the Iowa caucuses:
And here’s the front from last Wednesday, the day after the New Hampshire primary:
It’s easy to see the choice Hartford made. The larger play low on the page balances with the smaller photo but above-the-fold position for the other guys. Again, it makes perfect sense. Unless your leanings are Republican and the larger photo sticks in your craw.
Interesting how no Democratic-leaning readers wrote or called to complain that the photo of their winner wasn’t above the fold.
Hunter writes:
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.”
By contrast, check out how the hometown folks played the Iowa caucuses:
Yep. They played it right down the middle. Same thing with the New Hampshire folks, the next week:
Is this playing it smart? Or is this dumbing down our presentation in order to keep the angry phone calls to a minimum?
Hunter writes that Poynter’s Jeremy Gilbert had praised The Courant’s play of the caucuses. In an e-mail to Hunter, Gilbert said:
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.
Again, all good points. But if you have to explain your A1 design, does that mean it wasn’t effective? And how, exactly, does one stay out of the bias accusation game in this modern era of finding bias in damn near anything?
See a selection of Iowa caucus fronts at Mark Friesen’s Newsdesigner site. He also posted a sampling of New Hampshire primary fronts.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:33 am
I ALWAYS run politicians the same size, for exactly this reason. Fairness. Someone out there will cry bias. I did the QC Times front the night of the caucuses. I wish our shots had been more close-up but we sent a photog to Des Moines and that’s the best he could do for Obama, so I had to find a similarly composed photo on the wire for Huckabee.
On a related note, anyone else getting complaints about Hillary Clinton photos? Both my and my husband’s papers have received calls saying we’re running unflattering pictures of her. For some reason, they don’t seem to accept the fact that the wires RARELY move a flattering photo of Hillary Clinton. I wonder why this is?
January 14th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
We know what ‘dominant image” means and most of the time it’s effective, but it doesn’t sway the reader in times like this. In fact, “dominant image” is the very problem the reader is trying to point out to us.
Many new media folks say that newspapers have a fetish for objectivity that just makes them lifeless. Many people would like to see the passion of a Keith Olbermann or Mark Steyn every day. But as you can see, most people only want you to choose a side if you choose their side. I wrote it a little about this at http://blog.syracuse.com/newstracker/2008/01/objectively_speaking.html
About Hillary Clinton, she often uses a big-eyed, mouth open, it’s the most amazing thing to see you expression when she greets people. In person, it’s probably very effective, but in print, it makes her look maniacal.
January 15th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
The objectivity game is a tired irrelevant one but only if you explain your bias to readers so they don’t think you’re sneaking it in. In the case of caucus photos - when the paper likely has no stance yet - I think it’s important to be more visually objective. But that doesn’t mean equal photos side by side necessarily. Hartford Courant seems to be hanging on to an aged rule that the dominant OBJECT on the page must be a photo, not a package, type, graphic, numbers, or collection of such.
Transparency, legibility and conveyance are more important than a dominant photo in this case.