Jeffrey Thompson Raids Present Photo Dilemma
The mysterious Jeffrey Thompson
The FBI raids on DC politics mega-donor Jeffrey Thompson’s home and office Friday hold the promise of much more scandal and excitement for reporters, but they also present a challenge in illustrating the story, because pictures of Thompson are hard to come by.
Normally outlets could get around this problem by running a picture of someone else involved in the investigation, but no one seems to know for sure what Thompson is being investigated for. Here’s how different outlets handled the picture conundrum:
- The Post didn’t run a picture on its initial story, online or in print.
- City Paper opted for a computer-generated picture of a big stack of money. Loose Lips Alan Suderman explains in his post on Thompson that the paper doesn’t have a picture of him because “he’s media shy.”
- DCist kept the money theme, but chose real money ($100’s!) instead.
- WAMU just ran a Flickr picture of the Wilson Building.
- The Examiner ran the above picture of Thompson, stretched out beyond recognition in their CMS. It’s not clear where they got it, but this picture of Thompson can be found in a report from his accounting firm (PDF). It doesn’t look good, but it is a picture of Thompson, which is more than anyone else had.
The Washington Times hasn’t covered the Thompson raids, as far as I can tell, which is a serious oversight. There’s not even a mention in its City-State politics round-up or in City Hall reporter Tom Howell Jr.’s Twitter feed.
Update: The Post’s Mike Debonis just ran the new go-to picture of Thompson, along with the news that the raid was related to campaign finance. Barring a new publicity streak on Thompson’s part, expect to get reeaal used to that picture.
