And the short dude with a broom stands for ...

Here's another one that may have been left out of your j-education. Go ahead and write it into the margins of your stylebook:

If you need to spend cutline space explaining the symbolic content of a photo, kill the photo.

This reminder brought to you by the paper that ran this photo and its accompanying cutline:

Bill Ferguson answers questions outside the Boone County Courthouse yesterday. He displayed a spoon he said is symbolic of police feeding information to Chuck Erickson, whose testimony helped jurors convict his son, Ryan Ferguson, of killing Tribune Sports Editor Kent Heitholt.

Take his picture outside the courthouse, fine. Run his comments, fine. But when the defense lawyer shows up with an OO-scale model of Edward the Blue Engine and says his client was railroaded, tell him to write a letter to the editor, OK?