WaPo Ombud Counts Primary Photos, Admits Obama Overdone

Complaints about the size and placement and content of photographs are a constant at newspapers. On Sunday, Washington Post reader's advocate Deborah Howell tried to look at the big picture of presidential primary photos on the newspaper's front:

One day's photo choice does not mean much, but so many readers mentioned Page 1 photos that my assistant Jean Hwang and I looked at two months' worth of images. Between Dec. 16 and Friday [Feb. 15], Obama was on the front page 16 times; Clinton, 13; McCain, 12; Mitt Romney, 7; Rudolph Giuliani, 4; and Mike Huckabee, 2. John Edwards and Fred Thompson appeared on the front page only when they pulled out of the race. Democrats were on the front page 29 times, including two photos of Bill Clinton, and Republicans, 25 times. The difference is small but noticeable. We will continue to monitor it.

Does that math seem a little challenged? They say that basically there were 29 pictures of Obama and Hillary, and then add that Clinton appeared twice and Edwards once -- and yet Democrats "were on the front page 29 times." You could quickly suggest that of the top four contenders, the Democrats had 29 front-page photos, the Republicans 19.

In the paragraphs before it, Howell reported how some readers were upset that Obama's weekend caucus victories were put beneath the Redskins making a surprising choice in naming Jim Zorn head coach. They called it "narrow-minded" and "insular." (They could have said it didn't spread enough "Obama-mentum.") Howell acknowledged that sometimes, the Obama publicity might seem to be too much:

Others asked why the lead story Monday emphasized the news that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was changing campaign managers and featured a large, upbeat photo of her campaigning. Obama's victory in the Maine caucuses was relegated to a secondary headline and photo. Ed Thiede, assistant managing editor-news desk, supervises Page 1 design. "Replacing a campaign manager at this stage in the race is bigger news, to me, than winning one caucus. The pictures were a simple decision to play Clinton larger on Monday because we played Obama larger on Sunday. We want to be fair to the candidates in our visual choices." Agreed.

Wednesday's front page featured a large picture of Obama above the fold and a much smaller picture of Sen.John McCain below the fold. Three journalists, not from The Post, wrote: "What were editors thinking about last night when it came to photo choices?" They thought that the "huge, flattering photo of Obama" over "a tiny picture of McCain" gave "conservatives yet more ammo to accuse journalists in general of having a clear liberal/Dem bias."

Thiede said, "The closeness of the Democratic race makes that the newsier of the pieces. Also, it was a very strong photo -- a candidate out in public interacting with residents in our city on Election Day. That alone was a different image than most of these contests have given us -- a candidate on stage surrounded by supporters declaring victory. The McCain photo came in very late, on deadline. It, too, was a good image and there was debate about playing it larger on the page. We decided the Obama photo was better. We hurried to get McCain in, and we were comfortable that we were giving it decent play."

McCain's photo was so small that it conveyed the notion that his victory was not as important as Obama's. It wouldn't have been easy, but the Obama photo could have been cropped or downsized and both of them put above the fold.

We're now going to face a lot of journalists proclaiming that the Democratic race is worth five times as much publicity because it's still competitive. There's truth in that, but then the Democratic campaign coverage should have some negatives in it, and not simply being pitched with giddiness as History In The Making.