Iraq

Tough decisions on graphic content

NEW YORK - Television networks barely hesitated to air bloody photos of the corpses of Saddam Hussein's sons Thursday, while newspaper editors grappled with whether and how to print the pictures, knowing many readers already had seen them on TV or on the Internet.

The cable news networks - CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC - aired the pictures repeatedly after release, with the frequency decreasing as the day wore on. In some cases, viewers were warned of the pictures' graphic natures in time to turn away, if they wanted to.

"If it's the biggest story in the world today, how do we not cover it?" said Jerry Nachman, MSNBC's editor in chief. "If it's television, how do we not air it?"

ABC, CBS and NBC did not break into normal programming to show the pictures, but were showing them during regularly scheduled newscasts.

"It comes down to newsworthiness," said Kevin Courtney, spokesman for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and its Web site. "We put a warning advising users that it had graphic content. The decision was based on newsworthiness."

Older brother Uday appeared in two photos, his face pockmarked with blood stains and a large gash. Qusay's face was less bloody, but had bruises around the eyes. On MSNBC, corpse pictures were run side-by-side with file photos taken when the two men were living.

Fox News Channel ran the pictures with a series of captions: "Qusay was nicknamed the snake" and "Uday had women molested in front of nightclub audiences."

The Associated Press immediately sent the pictures out on its Photostream wire with an editor's note about the graphic nature, said Lew Wheaton, administrative director of AP Photos. The photo wire goes to thousands of newspapers, Web sites and television stations.

There were no complaints from editors, Wheaton said. An editor's note about graphic content is not uncommon; it is used on AP photos about 20 times a day.

In El Paso, Texas, home base for the 507th Maintenance Company, which lost 11 soldiers in an ambush in southern Iraq, photo editor Ruben Ramirez of the El Paso Times said the paper had a special obligation to keep the troops informed about news from the war.

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