By Justin Rebello

I co-op for the Boston Globe, so I guess I’m biased. But, the Boston Herald sucks.

What a classless, despicable newspaper. Now, I don’t know how many of you got a chance to see last Friday’s newspaper. If you did, you know what I’m talking about. The Herald decided to run a full front-page photo of Victoria Snelgrove, the 21-year-old Emerson student who tragically lost her life amidst the Red Sox victory riot last Wednesday night. The photo was not a profile shot, but a picture of her ravaged body as dazed onlookers passed by. On page four, they ran another shot that looked like a still out of a horror flick. Both photos showed Snelgrove, her face bloodied and lifeless after police shot her with a pepper-spray ball.

I mean what the hell is wrong with this paper? A girl was killed in a horrific fashion and the Herald runs the most exploitative shot possible solely for the purpose of selling papers.

I realize the Globe ran a picture of Snelgrove’s body as well, but with two major differences. The Globe’s picture ran on page B4, and was much smaller and more distorted. I don’t know if that makes it better from a moral vantage point, but the Globe wasn’t selling papers by exploiting a girl’s death in the most vile of fashions.

Now I understand journalism is a messy business. You have to check your morals at the door most days, but at some point common sense should take over and say, “Gee whiz, it might be wrong to show a dead girl’s body on the front page.”

The Red Sox defeating the Yankees in Game 7 was one of the greatest nights of my life, but I will forever remember the indelible image of a girl my age dead on the sidewalk. Is that the image I want in my head as my favorite team marches toward an improbable World Series title?

Hey, there are lots of people to blame for Victoria’s death.

You could blame the rioters who felt destroying property was the key to embracing a remarkable comeback, mostly non-New Englander college students who wouldn’t know their asshole from their elbow when discussing the Red Sox.

You could blame the cops for their actions, and using supposedly non-lethal force. Naturally, Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole quickly backtracked into defining the ammunition used as simply “less lethal.”

But at some point the media has an obligation to respect a young girl’s death and the family she left behind who has enough to deal with without a newspaper immortalizing Victoria’s last breaths in a bloody mess.

As if the picture wasn’t bad enough, the Herald had the balls to put a banner at the top proclaiming the Herald as having the “Best World Series Coverage!”

A young girl is dead. Umm, go Red Sox. I’ve been waiting all my life for this week and the whole thing has been trivialized by an idiotic newspaper who put your 50 cents over their responsibility as journalists, Bostonians and human beings.

For those who read the Herald regularly, you’re not exactly expecting journalistic integrity. This is the same paper that regularly includes Britney Spears’ marriage updates as a front page story. Obviously, the Herald decided a long time ago it couldn’t compete with the Globe and went the tabloid route. Fine, whatever helps you sell papers. I thoroughly enjoy the Herald sports section, but this is totally, incomparably different.

The Herald took it upon themselves to show an awful, inhumane picture entirely for shock value. Hasn’t the family of this poor girl been through enough? Now they can’t even go into a supermarket without seeing a picture of their daughter lying dead on the sidewalk.

Now, I’m not like one of those mindless soccer moms who bitch and moan if someone says “gun” on TV. There’s a bit of a contrast between Kenny getting his head blown off every week on South Park and real life dead bodies being exploited on the front pages of a major metropolitan newspaper. Fictional violence is one thing, anyone with common sense can attest to that. Real life death is entirely different.

The bottom line is an innocent girl is dead. Last Wednesday, thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate the greatest comeback in baseball history against a hated rival. A few jackasses took it too far. As far as I know, Victoria didn’t set any cars on fire. She didn’t throw a garbage can at a window. She didn’t put up any fight against the police who shot her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Victoria was an Emerson journalism student who wanted to be a TV reporter. She grew up in East Bridgewater and was a Red Sox fan. She died celebrating her team’s finest hour.

That’s how she should be remembered, not as a bloody corpse on the sidewalk.

— Justin Rebello can be reached at [email protected].