As photographs and video footage of the attack on four private security workers in Fallujah arrived at news organizations on Wednesday morning, editors and producers faced an immediate challenge: How graphic could the images be without offending viewers and readers?
Most large newspapers decided the horror of the day's events could not be fully conveyed without employing at least some of the more grisly images. But on TV -- where the impact of the images would arguably be more powerful -- no consensus emerged.
CNN, Fox News and NBC News decided to avoid the most graphic images of burned bodies being dragged through the street and hanged from a bridge.
"I think we can convey the horror of this despicable act while being sensitive to our viewers," said Steve Capus, the executive vice president of NBC's Nightly News.
But CBS News and ABC News decided that some of the images were necessary to really tell the story.
"CNN showed so much restraint it wasn't really covering the story," said Jim Murphy, executive producer of the CBS Evening News. CBS showed the most graphic of the images on TV on Wednesday, including a body hanging from a bridge.
Both CBS and ABC blurred other images of bodies, and Dan Rather and Peter Jennings, the anchors for the two networks, warned viewers of what images awaited.
In selecting a main image for yesterday's front page, editors of the New York Times chose a photo of the bodies hanging from the bridge, with Iraqi faces in the foreground.
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