Could the pictures in news operate in the same manner as they do in the classifieds? That is, when a picture is opened you then have the numbered boxes in that picture so you are able to just flick through them rather than open up each picture individually. Which is a pain.
The news pages use a CMS system so that the editor and news writers can put the stories up by themselves, unfortunately we are limited by what the CMS can do so at the moment this isn't possible. But when looking for replacement software for the CMS we will bear this point in mind.