( CNN ) -- It was a horrifying front-page photo in every sense of the word . It felt cheap , degrading and exploitative in a way that words could never match . The photo captures a Queens man , Ki-Suck Han , after he had been pushed onto the subway tracks Monday as an oncoming train roared toward him . The screaming headline says it all : `` DOOMED . '' But the New York Post had every right to run the picture . This is what tabloids do -- milk tragedy for every ounce of emotional impact . No New York straphanger should have been surprised to see the photo . Perspective : 'Outraged ' at NY subway death photo . A typical reaction : `` Sickening rubber-necking front page from the New York Post . Imagine how this man 's family feels , '' tweeted an editor at The Guardian . That , of course , is the normal human response . It also explains why Rupert Murdoch 's paper did it , knowing that everyone in New York would be gripped by the image . Watch : Is the New York Post harassing Alec Baldwin in alleged stalker case ? No one would dispute that the story is newsworthy . It is , in fact , every New Yorker 's nightmare . Perhaps you have to have spent much of your life crowding onto narrow platforms with total strangers and trying to squeeze onto overcrowded subway cars , to understand the every-day fear that you could be groped , mugged or pushed into danger . Watch : Fox 's Roger Ailes courted David Petraeus for possible presidential run . Why , then , the visceral sense of revulsion ? It 's fine to look down your nose at the New York Post for showing such a horrific picture , to say it was grossly unethical . But what about all the media outlets that show equally horrific pictures from war zones ? We 've seen bloodied children in Gaza , Pakistani police machine-gunned by the Taliban , bodies being thrown off roofs in Syria . And we 're horrified by a picture of a man who is about to die in New York ? What 's the difference ? Is it any worse because it happens in the United States ? The truth is that this picture seems more monstrously unfair because we can easily imagine being in the victim 's place . We may complain about it , but if it 's so clearly out of bounds , why have so many websites and television networks now run it ? For the Post to run it was unfair to Han 's family , but the media do n't usually worry about such things . It was accurate and captured an important story . Watch : Are TV newsbabes dressing sexy for ratings ? It was insensitive -- hard to imagine the photo running in The New York Times -- but people buy the Post for punch-in-the-gut tales , for the `` headless body in topless bar , '' not for astute foreign policy analysis . The story is so sickening that we want to turn away but ca n't . The picture makes us so uncomfortable that we 're mad at the Post for inflicting it on us . There are pictures of murder victims in the paper every day , part of the sad toll of urban life . But the difference is that we 're not watching them being shot or stabbed . Watch : Media embrace cop who bought boots for homeless man . One aspect of this tale that makes my blood boil is the role of the freelance photographer , R. Umar Abbasi . Instead of snapping two pictures of a man about to die , why did n't he try to pull him to safety ? Abbasi claims he hoped the flash would warn the subway driver . I 'm not buying it . His first instinct was to record death , not prevent it . Every editor has to strike a balance between depicting ugly reality and the sensibilities of readers and viewers . There are those who believe that the American media should run more pictures of dead or wounded soldiers , that we -- especially in television news -- sanitize war by shying away from showing its victims . Would I have run the front-page photo of Han ? No way . But the New York Post has a different mission , to shock and sensationalize , especially when it comes to crime . On that point , the tabloid succeeded , which is why so many people are angry -- and everyone is buzzing about it . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Howard Kurtz .
Howard Stern : New York Post ran degrading , exploitative pic of man about to be hit by subway . Human response is one of horror , and the paper did it : to grip New Yorkers , he says . He says it 's newsworthy for a reason , but worse it is photog who did n't seem to help . Kurtz : Post sensationalizes to sell it and succeeded , but he would n't have run it .