The smile on the face of a laughing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was large and radiant, as she pointed a finger appreciatively at someone in an Ohio campaign crowd.
Parked a few inches left from Clinton's picture on The Bee's front page was a similar photo of a grinning Sen. John McCain, also on the campaign hustings.
Both pictures published last Sunday were the same size, were cropped the same way to focus tightly on the candidates' faces and captured McCain and Clinton in upbeat moments.
McCain's photo even had him also using a hand gesture, thrusting a confident thumbs up at a campaign rally.
The selection, of course, wasn't by chance.
In the paper's efforts to be fair to the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates, it routinely and dutifully tries to be neutral and balanced in how they are visually displayed.
This time, though, the plan backfired.
The problem was the headline and the New York Times story accompanying Clinton's picture.
"Clinton's camp has an air of melancholy," read the headline.
"Melancholy," as defined by Webster's New World College dictionary, is "sadness and depression of spirits; a tendency to be sad, gloomy, or depressed."
There is nothing there about smiling or laughing or joyfulness or happiness or exuberance, traits that Clinton's photo displayed in abundance.
Several readers noticed.
"In Sunday's Bee there are pictures of the following female politicians: Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, (Kansas Gov.) Kathleen Sebelius and Heather Fargo," wrote reader John Paul of Carmichael in an e-mail.
"The only smiling face is Hillary's, next to the headline 'Clinton's camp has an air of melancholy.' I thought the purpose of the picture was to clarify, or give meaning to, the accompanying piece.
"The picture matches neither the headline nor the text."
Another reader, Dianne Lederer of Granite Bay, said in part of her e-mail: "As an amusing aside, do you see the humor in the Clinton story photo at the bottom of the (front) page? Check the headline as it relates to the photo."
Other readers also chimed in, wondering whether anyone at the paper was aware of the disconnect or whether The Bee was just trying to be funny.
After talking with several editors about the Clinton photo, it seems there was some concern about the picture, headline and story not jibing.
That concern was trumped, however, by the belief it was more important to treat the Clinton and McCain photos equally, in tone, size and display as part of the overall two-story package headlined "Race for '08."
Hence, the two smiling presidential candidates.
Yet other than that overarching headline, the two stories had nothing in common, with the McCain story headlined, "GOP dares to think McCain can win state."
I agree with the readers on this one. The Clinton photo had no relevance and certainly no connection to the story and headline describing her slumping campaign.
In The Bee's otherwise laudable goal and long-term effort to balance coverage of the competing presidential campaigns, the paper lost sight of the specific facts directly in front of its nose.
The result made the paper look silly, or worse, depending on your view.
Tom Couzens, the paper's Sunday editor, picked the Clinton picture. He said his overall goal was to balance the tone of the two pictures. Looking at it now, he said, he probably could have used a different photo, one more in keeping with the headline and story.
"Virtually all the live photos of Clinton from (last) Saturday showed her smiling, and the story pointed out – though clearly too far down – that she tries to keep the mood upbeat and that she 'looks and seems at her happiest after working rope lines,' " he said in an e-mail.
Robert Casey, an assistant managing editor who until two weeks ago oversaw the paper's photography department, and Mark Morris, The Bee's director of photography, both said the top priority when selecting pictures should be that they match headlines and story tone as close as possible.
Both acknowledged that wasn't the case this time.
With months to go before the fall general election, there will be many more similar decisions to make. Let's hope the paper is more discerning in recognizing when an overall goal – commendable as it may be – is really a straightjacket to telling a story accurately.
* * *
The New York Times report alleging, among other things, a romantic relationship between McCain and a female lobbyist continues to cause great controversy, as it reverberates in the media and on the Internet.
Political pundits, columnists and media critics of all stripes are feasting on the carcass, chewing away and spitting out critiques with such alacrity you'd think they were watermelon seeds.
The paper is taking a pounding and, in my opinion, a self-inflicted one.
The Bee ran the Times story Feb. 21 on page A10. Both McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, denied the accusation.
While the New York paper fielded a few thousand – and counting – angry comments from readers, only a handful of Bee readers lodged complaints here.
They may have been too busy going directly to the source.
Clark Hoyt, the Times' public editor, concluded that the newspaper didn't have the goods and was wrong for including the allegation of an affair without solid proof.
You can read his column, headlined "What That McCain Article Didn't Say," here.
It is, as they say, interesting reading.
The Public Editor deals with complaints and concerns about The Sacramento Bee's content. His opinions are his own. You can contact the Public Editor by mail at P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, CA 95852; or by calling him directly at (916) 321-1250.
