On a normal morning, newspaper readers don’t expect to be shocked by front-page images. But Thursday, readers of major newspapers such as the New York Times were awakened by photographs of charred bodies hanging from an iron bridge.

The images were from the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where four American contractors were brutally killed Wednesday. The photographs from the attack showed images varying from a car on fire to onlookers cheering as the bodies were dragged through the streets.

“It’s very graphic,” said Mara Spooner, sophomore in political science. “I don’t think that a person opening up the [New York] Times in the morning expected to see two charred bodies hanging from a bridge.”

Dick Haws, associate professor of journalism and communication, said the purpose of the photographs was to show the American public the brutality in Iraq.

“The media can so sanitize events that the public doesn’t understand the gruesomeness of what happened. That didn’t happen in this case,” said Haws, who teaches a class on media ethics.

Generally, the Western media does not run images of bodies if victims are identifiable, he said.

“In regard to this case of death and desecration in Iraq, from the media coverage I’ve seen … I don’t think any of these people were identifiable,” Haws said. “They were so brutalized they were not identifiable.”

Steffen Schmidt, university professor of political science, said the “disturbing” images show how deadly the Iraq conflict is. During the Vietnam War, images were a turning point, he said.

Haws said he thinks the gruesome images could be a defining moment of the Iraq conflict because of public reaction to the pictures.

However, Schmidt said he disagrees. Seeing images of bodies from Israeli bombings has changed the public, he said.

“I wonder if we haven’t gotten hardened, or, in a sense, grown up,” Schmidt said.

He said he questions whether the news has crossed a new boundary by running the images, which he finds inappropriate. The images could be considered sensationalistic, he said.

The way different newspapers chose to run the photographs also reflects the concern of whether the images are appropriate to publish, Schmidt said.

The New York Times ran the hanging bodies on the front page, but USA Today ran an image of rioters beating the charred bodies with their shoes. The photograph in USA Today was cropped to hide most of the charred body, while the same image ran inside the New York Times with the body easily visible. The Des Moines Register ran the bridge photograph on an inside page in black and white. The Iowa State Daily, which ran an Associated Press story on the attack, ran no photographs of the bodies.

The Register ran the bridge image at a “modest size,” said Richard Tapscott, a managing editor for the Register.

“[The photograph] is detailed enough that you can see the bodies hanging from the bridge and that they are charred,” he said.

Tapscott said when debating the use of the image, the Register had to consider its placement in the newspaper. Editors were concerned that children would be more likely to see the image on the front page, he said. Tapscott said he knew of four complaints to the Register.

There was no discussion at the Iowa State Daily about running the more gruesome images. Co-Photography Editor Shauna Stephenson said she chose the image of the car on fire for the front page of Thursday’s Daily.

“We have balked in the past at running graphic material on the front page,” she said.

If the Daily had run the image of the bodies on its front page, Stephenson said, the Daily would have received criticism for being sensational. It is easier for the New York Times to justify running the images, she said.

“I regret not being able to run the photographs, to an extent,” Stephenson said. “I regret the close-minded public opinion.”

Like the Daily, broadcast media in the United States has also shied away from running the images. Steve Coon, associate professor of journalism and communication, said broadcasters feel still images don’t have the same effect as moving footage.

“It has a much stronger emotional and psychological impact on viewers,” said Coon, who teaches broadcast media.

Some international broadcasters chose to run the footage. French newscasts aired the footage of the desecrated bodies, and some English press blurred the bodies as they were dragged through the city streets, according to the Associated Press.

“[International broadcasters’] perspective is one of a little more detachment,” he said.

Coon said the event is reminiscent of Mogadishu, Somalia, when the media showed a dead American soldier being dragged through the streets. TV networks aired images the first few days, but then stopped. News networks will continue to grapple with issues like these killings, he said.

Haws said he thinks the images may alter the public opinion of the situation in Iraq, as it did with Mogadishu in 1993.

“The event and the publicity of [Mogadishu] caused the Clinton administration to back out of Somalia,” Haws said. “It will be interesting to see what effect this incident has on public support for the war.”

Tapscott said he doubts the killings in Fallujah will have the same effect as Mogadishu.

“The upshot from the Somalia incident was we ended up pulling out our troops,” Tapscott said. “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell we’re going to pull out of Iraq any time soon.”