Drafting History, in Graphite

The last of the election drawings are now up at the St. Louis Beacon. If you enjoyed the series, I ask that you leave a comment on their site. I would like to do more such projects, and more importantly, I am hoping to help jump start a return to the ancient tradition of the illustrator-correspondent in the new media environment. 

I will present a complete set of all 23 drawings (possibly with a bracketing pair of intro and resolution pictures) next week sometime. 

Meanwhile, I am curious: for readers and viewers, what if anything does this set of drawings provide that a cycle of photographs cannot? What light is shed by such images on the events they describe? Why use fashioned images to report on events?

I am truly interested to hear your thoughts on this--I have some ideas of my own, but yours are much more likely to be useful.