Russell Williams is shown in a sketch as he addresses the court on Thursday, Oct. 21. He was sentenced to serve two concurrent life sentences. (Tammy Hoy/Canadian Press)

When photographs of Col. Russell Williams wearing his victims' underwear were released Monday, a major debate occurred in newsrooms across the country over whether publishing the material would be appropriate or too sensational.

Some newspapers, including the Toronto Star and Toronto Sun, chose to run the pictures on the front page.

Star editors could not reach a consensus in assembling Tuesday's front page, communications director Bob Hepburn said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Some felt the photo of Williams posing in garments stolen from a bedroom in 2007 to be inappropriate, he said. Others considered it vital for a proper understanding of the man.

Other organizations, including the Globe and Mail and the National Post, decided not to and opted to use court drawings.

The day the photographs were released, CBC News ran one image of Williams in the underwear, while showing several cropped photos that displayed only his head and shoulders.
CBC News executive editor Esther Enkin said the network wanted to tell the story through a "minimalist approach."

Sentencing expert Adam Boni believes that displaying the photos of Williams, who had pleaded guilty on Monday, was "unnecessary and unhelpful."

"You can paint a very, very vivid portrait of what was going on in those pictures without the pictures themselves," Boni told CBC News. "The problem with the pictures is that they have the capacity to amount to nothing more than public shaming, nothing more than stirring up the passions of the public in a way that is completely unproductive and unfair to the victims and to Williams's family."

Do you think the news coverage of Col. Russell Williams' sentencing has been too sensational?