Yesterday’s Examiner front page taught us a valuable lesson: sometimes the free daily newspaper doesn’t exactly match its headlines to the images that it splashes on the cover.

The front page juxtaposed an incendiary headline about Capital Bikeshare users and an image of an armed protester standing in front of a fire. If you didn’t stop to look more carefully, you’d miss that the image was actually linked to a smaller story on the front page about violent protests outside U.S. embassies in the Middle East.

But this odd combination of headline and image wasn’t a one-time thing for the Examiner, which otherwise produces reliable local journalism. In its attempt to attract the attention of commuters frantically trying to get to work, the paper’s editors sometimes mix headlines and images in ways that can produce unintended—and hilarious—results.

Ryan M., a DCist reader, has avidly followed—and documented—the Examiner’s front page hijinks for months. He told us that while he doesn’t often read the Examiner at work, he does notice its front page.

“One day I was brewing coffee and glanced at the cover and saw the headline, ‘Bloody spree in Prince George’s: Murders up 28% after four killings’, and right below the headline was this picture of this cute, innocent Hispanic kid playing in the water park in Columbia Heights. First I was really confused and then I started cracking up because the natural response is to think that the picture spread across the front cover is directly related to the huge headline right above it,” he told us.

“I eventually started having my coworkers take pictures of every cover (before I got a smart phone myself—hence why I am holding the paper most of the time). I would I actually be sad on the rare days that there wasn’t a hilarious cover. I always thought it would be funny to make a website devoted to hilarious Examiner covers with witty captions, but so far I’ve kept it just to a Flickr album. It always makes for a good party conversation, though,” he said.

Ryan was nice enough to share his images with us, and we’ve selected some of our favorite front pages—and captioned them based on what we think a normal person might think if they quickly glanced at it and kept walking.

But seriously, we’re just messing around with the Examiner. The paper has cultivated excellent local journalists, and we’re happy to have it. The coverage of transit, crime, schools, and local politics is an invaluable addition to a media world that keeps getting smaller.