This was true even when the audio matched the graphic. Using words high in imagery improves both attention and memory for stories without pictures. Using personal examples to illustrate a trend can give viewers the wrong impression if the examples are not consistent with the trend. Seeing more examples of a problem leads people to think the problem is more serious than the underlying statistics reflect. People believed a problem was more serious when they saw stories featuring an emotional victim as opposed to an unemotional victim or no victim at all.
Variety improves viewers' memory.
While viewers tend to remember stories with video better than those without, putting an anchor read story between two video stories improves memory for the anchor story. When programming that leads into a newscast is arousing, viewers tend to not remember much that happens during the first two minutes of the newscast. In general, viewers tend to remember best the last stories they see in a newscast, the first stories less well, and the middle stories the least. Emotional stories and stories with good video can overcome this effect. People pay more attention to stories that are teased.