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So What's Up With Those Graphics?

By Brian Montopoli

April 19, 2006 / 1:21 PM EDT / CBS News

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We were curious about the graphics featured on CBSNews.com, so we approached James Morris, a senior designer on the site, to give us a little insight into the thinking that goes into their creation. James was kind enough to write a piece for us about the challenges, politics and ethical considerations that go into crafting images for CBSNews.com. It's a refreshingly honest peek into the decisions that go into creating the graphics that show up on the site. Here's James:

The Politics Of Photoediting:

We use common sense and often work with news editors to tailor images to a given story. We don't go out of our way to achieve balance in the images we select, but it is something that we consider. (The site's editors are responsible for keeping an eye on issues of balance and looking at the editorial impact of the images used.) If there is a 500,000 person protest, and a 40 person counter-protest, we will make sure to throw in a photo from the smaller event, while giving major play to the larger. One of the great benefits of working on the Web is that space is unlimited. If there is conflict between which of two images is most appropriate, we just publish both.

Personal tendencies do come into play at times. During the first weeks of US operations in Iraq, I noticed that I had tended toward publishing fairly graphic images such as dead bodies and burned cars, where as other designers seemed to favor more editorial or artistically powerful images: Marines carrying babies, apache helicopters in the sunset. Obviously, we are often at the mercy of the image feeds we use, but there is inevitably a personal dimension to the process.

Photoillustrating:

We never doctor a news photo. However, when it comes to photo-illustrating - collages or 'generics' as we call them - we will often digitally manipulate images to emphasize a certain mood.

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Sometimes we miss the mark. When Israeli troops had surrounded Arafat and cut power to his compound, I created an image that tried to articulate a man who was cornered and trapped. We received complaints that Arafat was portrayed as being "sinister," and although this was never the intent, it was certainly a valid criticism. We pulled the image.

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We have also discontinued the practice of superimposing explosions, fire, bombs or crosshairs over flags after receiving complaints about desecration.

Obituaries:

This is very sensitive turf for journalists. It is common practice to prepare our obituary graphics in advance, especially if the subject has been ill for some time.

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These images typically feature a dual image, with a recent photo of the person in the foreground, and an image of them as a young man/woman in the back. Like a good funeral director, we always try and present the deceased in a flattering and respectful way, regardless of who they are.

Usually, the graphic includes the year of birth and the year of passing. This can cause problems, as people have a tendency to outlive their obituary notices.

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Sometimes a report of someone's demise turns out to be false. Sometimes they manage to hang on longer than expected. Reagan, Rehnquist, Bob Hope spring to mind. We first created an obituary image for Pope John Paul II in 2003. Each January 1, we would open the graphic, and revise the date of his death, until he passed in 2005.

Recycling:

Due to fact that often have such brief turnaround on art requests, we spend much of our time repurposing elements from earlier graphics into new work. We have a huge file dedicated, for example, to Bush heads. These are cropped shots of the president, like some psychology study, capturing him in every conceivable mood.

For example, there's Stern Bush:

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Bashful Bush:

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And Happy Bush:

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For most graphics, however, we re-use just one or two stock images over and over. As a result, there are a handful of elements that keep popping up on the site.

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It's at a point where I cringe every time I see that gavel, the police tape, the computer mouse, or that damned caduceus. And since many of these originate from subscriber wire services, like the Associated Press graphics bank, I am further haunted when these same graphics pop up on news broadcasts, "The Daily Show," or "Saturday Night Live."

Lighter Fare:

To the great displeasure of our news staff, many of our most trafficked stories are the silliest.

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These are the fluff pieces, the ones with dogs in pants, celebrities, and stupid criminals. There's the cocaine baby food, the pizza bear, the Star Trek lunch box marijuana story, the Chinese dog-headed vet, the polygamist, the Winona bust, the asteroid airbag, and perhaps most abysmally … the gun-wielding German shepherd, featured at the beginning of this post.

Design Challenges:

Certain requests pose more difficulty than others. Race is always tricky ... as is religion.

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In both cases, the challenge is how to illustrate a group without typecasting or stereotyping. Religion has iconography which helps: the crescent, the cross, the star… but how does one illustrate "The Taliban"? We found one good shot of Taliban clerics that we reworked for a number of images.

Another tough one: death. How, for example, does one create an image for a story on mortality rates, if no specific images are available? Child abuse and stories on teens are also problematic. Very rarely are photos released of underage suspects or victims. And wire services license very few generic photos of minors. What parent is going to sign over a photo of their kid, when it could end up illustrating a story on teen pregnancy or cyber-stalking? Our usual solution is to hide the child's face in the shadows, or crop them super-tight, or work with images of kids photographed from behind.

Another challenge is creating multiple graphics from a single available photo.

A few cases that come to mind: Chandra Levy, Osama Bin Laden, and Zacarias Moussaoui (for whom we are still using a badly outdated headshot.) The most memorable for me was the lead up to the execution of Timothy McVeigh. Three or four times a day, the home page editor would approach me and ask for a new McVeigh image. "We need something powerful." The problem was, only one usable photo existed of McVeigh. The results became more and more abstract.

Odds & Ends:

I remember preparing the infamous Abu Ghraib photos, in advance the "60 Minutes" broadcast. I found them very unsettling, but I admit I had no sense then that they would become as inflammatory as they did.

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Sometimes I will incorporate my own photos into graphics. I've used my cat a number of times. And I once worked up a generic toddler graphic using my young nephew's image. I removed it from the system a few weeks later when I found it running with a story about babies dying on airplanes.

Finally, one of my favorite graphics, created more than three years ago, has sadly never seen the light of day:

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