Some say it's a penis. Others say it's a tourniquet. As for me, I just don't know.

A note from a reader yesterday morning directed us to this blog post. It argues that the New York Post altered a picture of one of the victims of Monday's Virginia Tech shootings. The image, which has become more-or-less iconic of the massacre, appeared on the front page of 51 of the 565 newspapers archived by the Newseum Tuesday.

So, what exactly did the Post change? According to the blogger, the newspaper erased the subject's penis. When asked about the alteration, the Post's public relations counsel provided this response from executive editor Col Allan.

"We decided to make a very minor alteration to the photograph of Kevin Sterne being carried out of Norris Hall to protect the wounded student's dignity but in no way change the news impact of the picture."

The ethics of photo alteration aside, this question came to mind: What should a picture editor do when one of the most compelling pictures of a breaking news event holds the potential to cause harm, whether to the newspaper, readers or, at worst, the subject being documented?

If you've been watching this story closely, you now know that the subject of the picture is a Virginia Tech senior named Kevin Sterne. According to the Associated Press, Sterne saved his own life by tying a tourniquet around his leg. That thing the Post removed, some have argued, isn't his penis; it's his a tourniquet.

The Roanoke Times, the newspaper that produced the picture, ran it -- unaltered -- across six columns on the front page Tuesday.

Since Tuesday, a number of readers have e-mailed and called the newspaper to complain about the graphic nature of the picture. Many of them were disturbed by the blood, others about something else. But staffers at the newspaper assured me there was no genital exposure.

"I can tell you 100 percent that it is not [his penis]," photography director Dan Beatty said.

Here's how Beatty and his staff came to that conclusion and, ultimately, their decision to print the picture.

Alan Kim, the part-time staff photographer who produced the picture, filed his images from Blacksburg Monday afternoon. Later that day, once the image had become a contender for page one, managing editor Michael Stowe made an observation. Is that thing a penis?

He placed a call to Kim.

Kim said he hadn't noticed anything, so he fired up his computer and pulled the image onto his 21-inch screen. He enlarged it. "I looked at it very carefully, and I looked at the other stuff surrounding [that area] in the picture, and I decided it's not; it looked more like a tourniquet.

"I said, 'No, I don't think it is [a penis].' And that was the end of it."

Until Beatty heard from Kim, he wasn't sure what the thing was.

"I trusted Alan's judgment," Beatty said. "The folks who have worked here for years trusted Alan's judgment. And that's why we went with the picture."

Beatty said he put a lot of faith in Kim's analysis of the picture, but that's not to say he didn't examine the picture himself. He did. And, Beatty added, despite the nature of the story, he wasn't rushed to make a decision.

"We had other things to choose from," he said. "That particular image recreated the experience with more impact than anything else we had at that time. ... Pressure was not part of it."

But how could Beatty have been so sure? Kim said he was 200 yards from the drill field. And, he said, the frames he shot before and after the one in question were out of focus.

"Even the [picture] that was published," Kim said, "was kind of fuzzy."

Beatty admitted he and his staff didn't know everything about the picture. They didn't know, for instance, what the young man's name was. They didn't even know if he had lived or died.

"We made some assumptions," he said, "which is a dangerous thing to do."

The New York Post altered a picture that showed something innappropriate, perhaps a penis. The Roanoke Times -- and many other newspapers -- printed a picture that showed a tourniquet. What other options were available to newspaper editors?

Here's one from Poynter photojournalism group leader Kenny Irby.

Run a different picture.

"It was not essential to manipulate the photo," Irby said of the Post's decision, "because the alternative was very simple: Use a different picture.

"If this were the only picture they had, we'd be having a different debate."

But it wasn't the only picture. Editors had choices to make. The editors at the Post and the Times made their's.

What did you do?