A writer interviewed the boatie. It was likely published in print first where space is at a premium and/or only supported by the advertising at hand (they don't just add extra pages). Then online editors or lackies put up the story. News at that level and with that heritage is not at the level where they think like many of the rest of us on the net - e.g., add a gallery, etc.

Even the Great Pacific garbage patch page on Wikipedia has no photos - the cross-section of people out there able to take photos and people likely to be editing Wikipedia don't seem to cross.

You can see some on Google Images though I suspect that many are general garbage-in-water photos: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=great+pacific+garbage+pat...