Gripe: Captions

I've been dying to gripe about this and finally, I've had my fill. I've gotta complain..

Ok, Captions. Anyone who has to caption news photos knows what a pain in the rear it is, but I don't know if they realize just how IMPORTANT it is! I cannot TELL you how many times I've read captions that are either 1) not portraying what is actually happening in the picture, 2) VERY lacking in information or confusing, 3) may make sense to the photographer, but never the reader or 4) are grammatically incorrect! My biggest pet peeve! Yahoo photos, AJC, everyone I read does it! Look around at photos online, and you'll see.

Yes, I know how hard it is - I've done it too! It's very hard to come up with inventive ways to say what the picture is about. Sometimes it's just straightforward, but if that's the case, don't flower up the caption! We don't need a huge long description of someone standing in a field. And don't say "so and so looks on" when they're not looking at what you claim they are!

Some of this may be due to the photographer submitting a caption with a photo, and whoever places that photo in the paper/online uses the wrong caption. That I understand, but it still burns me up!