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If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s the worth of one that lands on the front page of a major newspaper?
I’m posing that question tonight because U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly had more than a few words about photographs of him distributed worldwide by the wire services covering his briefing on military strikes on Iran.
Apparently, the images were deemed “unflattering,” according to an exclusive report from the Washington Post. So, the Pentagon mounted a counterstrike by banning photographers from subsequent briefings.
When U.S. fighters are launched on the highway to the danger zone and soldiers are returning home in coffins, I’d like to think there are more pressing matters for Hegseth than whether a photographer caught his good side.
But such is the sad state of what is increasingly the performative nature of politics.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, right, listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while traveling aboard Air Force One on Saturday.(Mark Schiefelbein / The Associated Press)
When it comes to our front-page photo selection, flattery is never a consideration. What we look for is something that tells a story.
When we catch the reader’s eye, we want to reward them with something worthy of their attention. That often involves emotion, with images that are raw, even disturbing. But there’s also nothing wrong with a front-page photo that makes you smile.
What we offer each day is an image worthy of leading off the daily record we have been adding to since 1872. As always, we put a premium on images captured by our own team of award-winning photojournalists here on the ground in Winnipeg.
And if someone like Hegseth were to complain about how he looked on our front page, we would likely take that as a badge of honour.
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