Ok, I saw this yesterday, and then again today in multiple places and now its just annoying the crap out of me. I really don’t know the legality of posting these images, so I pulled this first one from associatedpress.com and the second from cnn.com (both on their front pages)

Both are used with headlines such as “Dow has biggest drop in 5 years” or “Traders fear next great depression” pretty much the scariest headlines possible. Then they throw in a picture like this. Your wondering what is wrong with these? It is just some stock trader covering his mouth aghast at what is going on? But hes not covering his mouth in shock, hes guarding his headset so he can be heard by whoever he is talking to.

This second one is less apparent but I saw a bigger version and there is an obvious motion blur as he moves his hand away from covering the mic. I think anyone who covers the trading floor would know what these guys were doing since I picked up on it and my 3 months with A.G. Edwards as an intern don’t exactly qualify me as some sort of NYSE all-knowledgeable genius. It’s nothing terrible, its not photo shopping extra smoke in an Iraq city or extra missle launchers in Iran, but it is a misuse of a photo that goes against normal editorial rules. Now my rant is over it won’t annoy me… until I see it tomorrow.