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Every once in a while, a story comes along that offers media outlets a great deal of artistic license when selecting an image to accompany their articles. On Monday, that story was the news of a study published in Pediatrics medical journal, which found a correlation between childhood physical punishment and adult mental disorders.
Below, take a trip into the dark recesses of the psyches of some of the Internet's largest news aggregators as they tackle the question: What is the best way to illustrate a story about spanking?
USA Today, the source often cited by many of the news outlets that later wrote about the study, went with an image of a hand moving so fast it appears to be igniting, in the same way that a VW Bug with flames painted on the sides resting in a mall parking lot appears to be moving so fast it is on fire.
The kinkiest websites opted to use photos depicting adults in the literal act of spanking:
- The Inquisitr
- NY Daily News
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Another popular motif was the top of a child's head, commonly believed to be the saddest spot on the human body:
- Huffington Post
- The Globe and Mail
- Fox News
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Some news outlets chose adorable photos of children holding hands with their parents — the implication being that these very parents would begin spanking their children into a lifetime of pill addiction as soon as the photographer's lens was lowered:
- Slate
- AFP
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The weirdest decision by far was the use of generic stock photos of extremely rosy-cheeked children:
- Newser
- Health Magazine
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And, finally, the utter cop-out: a photo of anti-depressants:
- CBS Atlanta
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[Image via Valeriy Lebedev for Shutterstock]