While looking through a number of media handout photos from a national grocery store chain or at least from its public relations agency, it’s obvious that all of the pictures fail to meet basic journalism standards.
Everyone in a photo must be identified. In a fully-controlled situation like a set-up publicity picture, this is easy to do. An improperly-captioned photo shows not only laziness and carelessness on the part of the photographer and the public relations agency, but also a lack of understanding of journalism and the needs of a newspaper.
Naming only one person in a group and then expecting viewers to figure out who’s who is a failure. A company may know its executives but the public does not. Why make readers guess?
Every identifiable person in a photo must be accounted for. Journalism 101.
If someone isn’t worth naming then they shouldn’t be in the photo. Public relations 101.
Two reasons why media handout pictures don’t get used:
1) Boring or incompetent photography.
2) Failure to meet basic journalism standards.
A proper caption is vitally important. It should repeat the main message of the event in case the release is not read or used. More often than not, the caption is the only textual contact with the reader.
Mindless captions are a waste of time. If someone is standing to the left, there’s no point to saying: “John Smith stands on the left”, or, “John Smith looks on.”
Of course, the infamous word “reacts” should never be used: “CEO John Smith (L) displays the new cell phone while Vice President Susan Brown reacts.”
Captions should not be based on appearance: “John Smith (red hat) and Bill Jones (blue hat) stand with Susan Brown and Mary Mills (dark hair).” This type of caption is meaningless for readers with vision problems or when the photo runs in black and white.
All of the above mistakes come from inexperienced photographers and PR people who don’t know, or don’t care, what they’re doing.
News outlets get tons of handouts every day. Newspapers love and want handouts because they’re free content. Yet, most handouts never get used. It’s not hard to figure out.
