"News Illustrations": What's Wrong With This Picture?

[gulliver]

Have a look at this ABC News graphic. It is on the site today.



I had no idea that Suze Orman ever appeared with Jim Cramer until I saw this picture. Apparently the prudent, sensible Orman decided to do an appearance with the wild man Jim Cramer. Weird, but hey, there's the picture showing it, so it must have happened.

I have to admit that the giant, ghostly accident victim who apparently appeared with Orman and Cramer did bother me. The poor guy! Here he is with giantism and transparent skin (brain and spinal column showing, ugh), but then he has the misfortune of a super-super-giant light switch somehow getting embedded in his skull. Hope they can get that out!

So, I'm thinking what must have happened here is that Orman and Cramer were doing some sort of telethon to benefit ghost people with objects protruding from their skulls. It must be that. No reputable news organization would just cobble together a bunch of file images and publish something this grotesque and hard to believe. It must be real life.

I saw another one this week (wish I could find it) where Obama was standing right beside a gigantic marijuana leaf. I kid you not, it must have been three feet across. And there was Obama standing right beside it, looking right toward it. He was probably surprised at how big it was too. Who wouldn't be?

Apparently, Obama said something against marijuana legalization last week, so he possibly had the huge marijuana leaf with him to illustrate. It seems like a bad idea to me. Bush always had happy words floating around him. Obama's prop people gave him a giant marijuana leaf to stand beside! What were they thinking? I mean, assuming the image was not fake of course.

If reputable news organizations deliberately published misleading, grotesque, unbelievable images, they would not really be reputable. They are supposed to be news organizations after all, not merely phantasmagoria and lie factories.

Right?