One of our overnight editors left this message from last night: 

“ASHAMED: Got my butt chewed out by a woman who was most upset that the Post-Dispatch/website reported the use of an ax in our Sheley coverage. She felt that we were sensationalizing the story by making it unnecessarily graphic and not caring about the families and friends of the victims. I mentioned that we generally report how people die in murder stories (gun shot, stabbed, burned, etc.), and she felt that blunt-force trauma would have been more sensitive. And she said to tell everyone who worked on the story that they should be ashamed of themselves. I thanked her for her call and now I’m passing along her comments.”

Would you prefer to be shielded from such graphic details? Does consideration for the families of the victims trump the public’s right to know? How much is too much?