Media Blog reader John A. writes in with his thoughts on the picture:

I thought it was simply a picture of a finger pointing up. In the image, the purple fingertip has been cropped out of the photo. This turns a meaningful political statement into nothing more than a finger. That seems to be the real goal of news outlets like the NYT: Show newsworthy stories and images, but report on them selectively enough to change the meaning completely. Your analysis is good, but it did not go far enough.
John A.