Long after the internet has been established as a platform for news media, and longer still since news has integrated photography into their story telling, news writers and editors still struggle to trust the image and use it to its fullest potential opting instead to commit countless inter-semiotic redundancies making their readers experiences more cumbersome than necessary and leaving their writing less concise than it could be.
USA Today’s initial caption describes the action taking place in the photo. Simply removing this section and moving around a few names eliminates the inter-semiotic redundancy.
“Bharani Rayana, 39, and Madhuri Adari, 32, following reunification with their second-grade son Daksha Rayana, 8, at the Highlands Ranch Recreation Center after a school shooting.”
Vox reiterates much of what is made clear by the photo in the caption. It explains that the photo was taken in Iran, despite the Iranian flag being present —a symbol which should be well recognized from how often the country and its flag is in the media, mentions the military parade which is at the forefront of the photo, and mentions the presence of the Iranian president who is also a well recognized figure and should be intuited from other context clues in the photo such as his face being blown up on the left and right side of the stage.
“Annual army day in Tehran on April 18, 2019. Stringer/AFP/Getty Images”
Bloomberg mentions the name of a well known world wide figure, President Obama, and describes his actions. The caption could easily be cut in half making it more concise and no longer redundant to the information already obvious from the image.
“2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit at Stanford University on June 24. Photographer: David Paul Morris “
Digiday shows the redesigned app which the previous four paragraphs discuss. The caption “Facebook’s redesigned app” adds nothing to the story or photo and is entirely superfluous and unnecessary. The caption should simply be removed.
Syracuse.com (The Post Standard) presents redundant information across the photo, caption, and following paragraphs creating multiple forms of redundancies along with the inter-semiotic ones.
“Tuesday, May 7, 2019. From left to right: Joseph Geglia, Elmcrest’s executive director; Dennis Cleary, of the Elmcrest board; Val Capriotti and David Caprotti, who chaired the fundraising campaign; Bob Crichton and Sue Crichton, parent’s of the late Casey; Doug Klepper, builder; Dan Manning, architect, Diane Nappa, Casey’s Place Director; Coach Jim Boeheim; and Juli Boeheim.”
The Albany Observer 