Last week, this column tried to explain The World's decision not to print particularly gory photos from Iraq. Many other news outlets displayed the images, which showed burned and mutilated bodies of Americans hanging from a bridge while Iraqis celebrated in the foreground.

Many other editors wrote columns explaining why they did what they did with the photos. And across the country, 27 newspapers, including The World, took the conversation a step further. We asked readers to play editor and tell us what they would have done with the photos. The effort was part of the Associated Press Managing Editors National Credibility Roundtables Project, whose goals include encouraging public dialogue about journalistic issues.

This debate took place on the Internet, at a Web site to which participating newspapers directed readers whose e-mail addresses they'd accumulated.

Nationally, more than 13,000 e-mails went out, and about 2,000 people responded. The World sent out about 2,800. More than 200 of our readers visited the site, clicked to see one of the photos at issue and registered their responses to four questions, including whether they would have used the photo at all.

A tally of the responses from across the country showed that 58 percent of the participants would have printed the photo and 39 percent would not. Three percent overall had noncommittal or unclear responses to that question.

The 200 Wenatchee World readers who responded were divided differently: Only 39 percent would have run the photo, 51 percent would not have and 9 percent were in the "other" category.

It's important to note that this was not a scientific survey, and that the people who responded may or may not be representative of Wenatchee World readers or of the public at large. Draw statistical conclusions at your peril. But it's at least interesting that local respondents differed markedly from those nationally.

It may be accurate to assume, however, that the number of responses indicated a strong interest in the topic. And the nature of the responses reflected a strong polarization of opinions. People were vehement on both sides of publishing the photo, and diverse in their reasons.

Some examples:

Stan Comer of Wenatchee wrote, "This is the real world. If you believe in free, uncensored speech then you should believe in free, uncensored images of the real world. You ask if the pictures should be shown if the bodies were of American soldiers. I say the pictures should be especially and specifically shown if they were American soldiers. This would graphically show why we have soldiers there in the first place. This is the kind of uncivilized way of living we are trying to change."

Tami Gurnard of East Wenatchee: "Yes. War is horrific and the casualties are real. We become disassociated with the horror of it. It doesn't always touch us personally as it is happening someplace else. These are real people who are tortured or killed ... our fellow Americans. We need to face these facts and understand that the decisions we make when voting someone into office has consequences for all Americans. We should be shocked, we should be horrified ... it is important."

Teri Fink of Wenatchee: "No. Simply because newspapers are read by all. In fact The Wenatchee World has a kids' page. Newspapers have been reading material that can be left around the house for everyone to read, or just look at the pictures. You could cause some problems for children by having graphic, horrific photos in the newspaper. We would have to start screening the paper the way we do TV and movies."

Malcom Butler of Wenatchee: "I would not run it. This picture at best incites very strong passion, at worst it incites blood lust. I do not see any journalistic value to the image which a talented writer could not relate in words. I do see huge propaganda value which could be used to stir hatred and violence, neither of which need any more stirring."

Good points, all. I hope all those who responded got a feel for the decisions editors must make. For our part, editors who read the responses saw many facets to the issue we hadn't previously contemplated. It was also good to realize that a lot of people out there care so much about what goes into the newspaper. All of that will be useful next time we make a similar decision.

Gary Jasinek's column appears on Mondays. Reach him at jasinek@wenworld.com or at 665-1176.