I was a bit surprised to see the photo out of the Israel bombing the NYT picked to lead with this morning, but E&P says the Times didn't get many complaints.

"We acknowledge that the picture is unusually violent and grisly. Our editors thought long and carefully before choosing it for the front page," the paper said in a statement Wednesday morning. "They concluded that the picture was an appropriate way of depicting the horror of the latest violent turn in the Middle East, with 14 civilian victims and an apparent end to a six-month period of relative calm between Israelis and Palestinians.

"While we are determined not to present disturbing scenes unnecessarily or for mere shock value," the statement continued, "there are times when our readers would not be well served by a sanitized version of events. We believe that most readers expect us to give them a full and representative view of important news. We do regret the discomfort of readers who do not share that view in this case."

I didn't see any other American papers run it on A1 (the Terminator was speaking!) and only a couple European and South American papers did. Even the Israeli tabs were not as grisly.

Update: In fact, you'll note that Yedioth Ahronoth (right), which used a photo from the same photographer, appears to have pixelated out the woman shown in the Times photo.

>Grisly 'NY Times' Photo Draws Few Complaints [Editor & Publisher] thanks, Charles!