[safeplanet-fesa]

I have an even broader question: why do articles talking about some subject, have a random image representing the subject attached? For example, if an article talks about coffee, there will be a picture of a random cup of coffee or a random coffee tree field. I have never understood the point of it, but this has always existed in all forms of journalism.

[kd5bjo]

For the print edition, the image is there to catch the eye of people that are interested in the general topic as they scan through the publication to determine what they want to read. I suspect it’s mostly vestigial for the one-article-per-webpage digital edition, but it still helps convey some branding in the particular choice and style of image.

[soneil]

I've worked with CMS where each entry pretty much required a "hero". Elsewhere in the system articles were thumbnailed as photo+headline, and attaching a random coffee.jpg caused less problems than trying to fix templates that expected photo+headline.