Readers Balance Compassion With Privacy When Considering Disturbing Images

Readers and journalists alike struggled to balance compassion and family privacy with a broader need for information. They saw value in unflinching descriptions of wartime brutality, but no one wanted to become a tool for terrorist propaganda.
Some of the shared values weren't abstract at all: How do I explain this picture to my kids?
Opinions were collected by the Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtables Project, which involved more than 2,400 readers and 400 journalists who viewed five photographs, then decided where (or if) the images should be published. Subjects included tsunami victims, American soldiers and violence in the war in Iraq. In most cases, a majority believed the picture ought to be published somewhere in the newspaper, if not on the front page.
"Report the news as it happens and don't try to soft-pedal everything," said Wally Rayl of Cheyenne, Wyo. "How can people react appropriately to any given situation if they don't have all the facts; or if the facts are altered because someone thinks life is too graphic for us to deal with? ... Not being able to face reality is a major problem in our society today."