I have initially contributed the import feature. For some reason which I don't remember the path where news with images stores the images, and perhaps the access files, too has changed later on. The import part wasn't adapted anymore, since most wbce installations had already switched from topics module or news module to news with images (and the import script is really a huge piece of code which usually is called only once. So it's a lot of maintenance work for a feature rarely used. It also never was intended as a fully complete solution, but rather an integrated helper to do most of the work when you need to convert a huge number of posts)

The SYSVAR:MEDIA_REL in the news module is something which was introduced by the WB colleagues later on in their subsequent versons of the news module.

The [wblink] is a problem when you import a table from a different installation, where the page ids are different.

Demo - The top post has long text, the bottom post does not have long text or a gallery.

I do not mean to sound negative or appear to be questioning anyone's logic, I am just curious why this resulting behaviour would not be the preferred default?  Specifically, I am curious what the point is of keeping the <a> href tag present when there is no link (long text or gallery) to go to? ... when doing so further forces the use of javascript to change the cursor appearance on hover?

Please don't feel the need to explain, I am just puzzling out loud.

I'm very grateful for everything you do for those of us who benefit from the joys of using WBCE.  And, on a personal level, above your generous efforts, your kindness and patience are deeply appreciated.

The only use I can think of is to deactivate (hide) a long list of articles at once. For example, you may have a group named "archived", so you can move articles you wish to archive to that group and hide them all at once, regardless of their individual visibility settings. Of course, this could also be achieved by having a hidden page with NWI to move archived articles to.

That would have been my expectation, too.

In the /modules/news_img/delete_tag.php, after

// remove the local tag
    $database->query(sprintf(
        "DELETE FROM `%smod_news_img_tags_sections` WHERE `section_id`=%d AND `tag_id`=%d",
        TABLE_PREFIX, intval($section_id), $tag_id
    ));

add, accordingly to the deleting of global tags, just

 $database->query(sprintf(
        "DELETE FROM `%smod_news_img_tags` WHERE `tag_id`=$tag_id",
        TABLE_PREFIX
    ));

This seems to work without complications...?

I must have overlooked something when I tried adding the

{%if (news.IMAGE) %}{% endif %}

and testing.  Perhaps tired eyes were at fault.

Just an FYI, that folder is not visible using cwsoft-addon-file-editor:

I do understand the process of setting up custom Views, and I greatly appreciate having that ability.  This will likely be the path I take.

Thank you for the hint at editing add.php.  I may go that route, I have not decided yet.  I do understand that I would need to maintain that file after further module updates, so I have to weigh which approach will be best for me and my client.

Thank you, again!

Upon further thinking...
I guess, order by Submission ID would allow you to display a listing of every x posts (e.g. every second or third, or odd or even).  Not sure when that would be useful, but there may be cases.
Upon even more thinking, this would involve custom coding, and so simply selecting it as the "Order By" mode, would not achieve this.  Oh well.