But what patent troll cowboy was trying to assert is that if he is depicted in a photo then under copyright law he "owns" the photo. Although as the person you were replying to pointed out there is some basis for this notion under common law right to publicity, this is distinct from federal statutory copyright law (and in any case would not apply in the context of a news article).

Since his assertion has no basis in copyright law either: (a) he has an honest confusion regarding how that area of the law works or (b) he was relying on the reporter's assumed ignorance of the law to engage in some good old fashioned baseless legal intimidation in order to get his way. But that's not something a patent troll would do.