On Friday, we mentioned that two Iraqi ABC News journalists had been murdered in Baghdad. Along with the news, we posted a picture of the two men that had been released by ABC News.

Late Friday evening, a producer informed us via email that the picture had been pulled both from our post and from the story about the murders on CBSNews.com. According to the email, the families of the dead men had informed ABC News that they were receiving death threats, presumably because it was now known that the men had worked for an American media outlet. ABC News asked CBSNews.com to take the photos down, and producers here agreed.

The "Evening News" discussed the murders on the Friday broadcast, but anchor Katie Couric did not use the names or photos of the men on the air. CNN also declined to use their names and pictures; Howard Kurtz cited the fact that "the families of those killed have been receiving threats, and CNN is seen internationally" as the reason. ABC News, in its extensive coverage of the killings on "World News" on Friday, did use their names and photos.

"After approving the release of the photos of Alaa and Saif on Friday morning, the families later in the day grew concerned for their own safety," ABC News spokeswoman Cathie Levine told Public Eye. "From that point on, we limited our use of the pictures, recognizing that we live in a digital age and the photos had been distributed electronically."

According to Levine, "World News" normally airs in the Middle East, but Friday's edition was not put on the air there.

As for the decision to remove of the pictures, it ultimately might not have made much difference, as the proverbial genie was already out of the bottle. (And, of course, the men's names remain all over the Internet.) But ABC News (and, ultimately, CBSNews.com) did the right thing by honoring the family's request, if only for the outside chance that doing so might have made them safer.

The situation with the photos drives home how perilous it can be for Iraqi journalists to work for American media outlets: Not only can they be killed for doing so, but their families can be at risk if they are found out - even after they are murdered. Without the work of these journalists, the quality of the coverage out of Iraq – and our understanding of the war – would be greatly diminished.

"They are really our eyes and ears in Iraq," ABC's Terry McCarthy said after the attack. "Many places in Baghdad are just too dangerous for foreigners to go now, so we have Iraqi camera crews who very bravely go out … without them we are blind, we cannot see what's going on."