Believability Quotient

"If you see it in The Sun, it's true." -- Young father to his daughter, prompting the editorial, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."

   A picture is worth a thousand words, goes the old saying, and that's probably because it has a higher Believability Quotient (BQ). Not only that, but it takes up less space in print.
   Consider this: People are more likely to believe something they see in print than if they hear it from a neighbor over back-fence gossip. When a newspaper adds a picture, whether a cartoon or a photograph, the story's BQ rises.
   Television adds sound and movement to the spoken word, so it has an even higher BQ. However, with that higher BQ comes more responsibility.
   The best broadcast journalists are aware of this, and follow the high principles of traditional print news reporting. But here, as in so many things, the Law of Supply and Demand applies. High demand can soon outstrip the available supply of qualified, competent journalists. In addition, the compensation factor applies. You get what you pay for, and if publishers and broadcasters want good writers and reporters, they'll have to pay accordingly. Unfortunately, that's not always the case, as publishers and managers content themselves with mediocrity, so the best go to other professions or to bigger cities. Similarly, teachers leave that trade for other fields that pay more.
   But that's another story. The point is that for journalism to keep its needed reputation for believability, it must focus on accuracy and fairness as well as on good writing and presentation. Why? As any marketing manager knows, packaging sells the product. But if the product -- in this case news and information -- is not good, no amount of flashy packaging can save it from losing market share. In journalism, that means readership and viewers.
   And pictures, cartoons or photographs, can add to a story's believability.
   Or as the Tammany Hall leader explained his dislike for political cartoonist Thomas Nast in the 19th Century, "My constituents can't read," so the text doesn't matter.