Visually impoverished
I've pet-peeved for many years on the odd lack of visualness in television. Even though each subject has thousands or millions of photographs and clips available, news stories use precisely one standard 'icon' for each subject. If a story involves DNA, we see a technician using a pipette to fill a grid of gels. If a story involves smoking, we see the side view of a cigarette assembly line, and we see a closeup of some old unshaven dude smoking. If a story involves obesity, we see fat people without heads walking down the street. If a story involves an Amber Alert, we see a teddy bear. You know the pictures I'm talking about, because you see the same ones on your TV no matter where you live.

In other words, TV might as well be radio. It was intended to bring us actual pictures of events, but instead it brings us a standard font of icons, with as much visual meaning and variety as the desktop icons on a computer screen.

And for a story about al-Qaeda, we see tall Osama with his scepter of authority, walking grandly through the mountains, and Soldiers of Allah being trained on jungle gyms and martial arts.

Think for a moment about the jungle gym and martial arts. Does this bear any relationship to even one known attack by the Army of Allah? Has any Christian or Jew been knocked down by a flying ninja kick? No. All attacks to date have been high-tech attacks, using airplanes, cars, bombs, and guns. No athleticism required. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to use clips of actual attacks for the stories about Mohammed's Military? Clips of stockbrokers jumping from the WTC, beheadings, cars smashing into innocent college students ..... Those clips would keep us mindful of the specific forms of attack we can genuinely expect.
  ¶ 10:01 AM