This column should really just be a dog picture

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Personally, I find that number a bit on the excessive side, given my own experience here at the newspaper over the past two and a half years.

Apparently, according to the vast combined knowledge of the internet, this saying originated from Arthur Brisbane, a newspaper editor. In 1911, according to the Syracuse Post Standard, he was quoted as saying “Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words” at a journalism banquet.

I’m unclear what the exact context of his statement was said in (as I’d have to pay $22 a month to see the actual article it was printed in, and I’m not that invested), but I do find it somewhat interesting that this ubiquitous statement on “show, don’t tell” and that seeing something for oneself can oftentimes be more informative than reading even the most solid of descriptions has its origins in the newspaper industry.

Because while there is the more metaphorical reading of his words that has taken on a life of its own, there is also a very literal meaning as well, one that anyone who has ever put together a piece of newsprint can certainly understand.

Pictures are the ultimate utility players when it comes to putting together a newspaper page. The calculus to make sure each page is full is not very exact, but some items have more defined values than others. Ads are the most rigid by the time they reach us in the editorial department, their dimensions and design pretty much set in stone. Articles can be a bit more flexible in terms of the space they take up on the page, with the subject matter and one’s ability and time to write more content or cut out pieces to fit a certain area as limiting factors. These are your typical building blocks of a page, the Tetris pieces that you have to try to fit together to make sure everything looks okay.

But pictures are like that piece that you saved from earlier that you can deploy at just the right moment to perfectly clear four lines at once. They can be morphed and fitted to fill in the gaps left by the articles and ads, their variability much quicker and easier to adjust than trying to write more.

That being said…a thousand words is a bit much. Those are some pretty big pictures (this column at this point is about 400 words, for a bit of context) and even if you generously attribute some bonus words for the amount of time you save by placing a picture instead of trying to fill that same space with an article…I don’t know, the math isn’t really adding up. Plus, when you add a picture, you also have to add a caption. Not only is that more words, but writing captions is probably one of my least favorite things in the world, so I think that should deduct some points as well. I’d say the average picture in the Tribune Phonograph is worth something more like…350 to 450 words, which is significantly less than a thousand.

Was there a point to all this? Probably not, but that’s what you get when you leave me a spot for a column every week instead of just including two pictures of Sami’s adorable dog. That would be worth at least 500 words.

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW

BY

NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER