It takes a lot to shock Debra Watson. The Sandy Springs woman has ajc.com set as her home page (something she's now reconsidering) and goes to the site frequently throughout the day for news updates and interesting tidbits.

Watson said Tuesday's "Top Five Sexiest Athletes" list, provided at the AJC's request by Lisa Ann Taylor, also known as the "Mansion Madam," was a new low.

ANGELA TUCK PUBLIC EDITOR • E-mail Tuck Recent columns: Hip-hop, rap, R&B are a huge part of the ATL scene  Edwards affair was a tough call for mainstream media  Offshore-drilling story was beached by an iffy photo choice  A big metro area, and we'll continue to cover it all  Watchdog reporting central to the AJC's mission

"Why would you choose to do that? It showed extremely poor taste. It was ridiculous," she said.

Watson and other readers who commented on a blog about why the newspaper "went there" took the words right out of my mouth.

Why give more publicity to a woman who has been charged with running a prostitution ring out of her home, who faces a lengthy prison sentence and who clearly relishes the attention her arrest has brought her career as an adult entertainer?

Why make light of her alleged deeds by allowing her to offer her opinions about Atlanta's sexiest athletes?

Who, pray tell, cares?

The idea for this feature originated with the sports department. Since Taylor had been in the news, an editor decided it might be fun to ask for her picks for Atlanta's sexiest athletes. Once the feature was placed online, as content planned for the next day's print edition often is, some readers made it clear in the blog attached to the story that they believed we'd crossed the line into sensationalism.

After some internal discussion, in part prompted by comments on the sexiest athletes blog, a decision was made not to run the list in the sports section's "Gimme Five" feature on Wednesday, which was the original plan.

This brings me to a larger issue that often comes up in my conversations with readers. The way we frame stories — in attempt to make them more entertaining — sometimes comes across as glorifying the actions of people in the news.

At first, it was intriguing to learn about the alleged call-girl ring that police say Taylor and her business partner, Nicole Probert, ran out of a mansion in a wealthy Gwinnett neighborhood.

But stories describing their lifestyles as strippers, frequent updates on what the women have been up to since posting bond and a Private Quarters feature on the now infamous home, went too far in the direction of "isn't this harmless?"

The same can be said for the tone of the newspaper's coverage of the so-called "Barbie Bandits," who were arrested on charges of stealing $11,000 from a Cobb County bank in February. The girls' alleged accomplices certainly weren't given cute nicknames or the benefit of the doubt about their alleged roles in the heist. Even before we knew the details of their troubled lives, a front-page headline in the AJC described the teenagers as girls next door.

The unusual nature of these incidents make them front-page news for a day or two. But beyond trying to find out more about who these people are, I don't see the need to write dozens of stories about them, thereby turning them into folk legends.

Watson and other readers I've heard from don't understand our obsession with these stories.

Said Watson about the charges facing Taylor and Probert, "Why don't you guys get over your fascination with hookers? It's the oldest profession around."

She admits to looking at the pictures of Taylor's lavish home, acknowledging her role in making the Private Quarters feature a very popular online attraction.

"It's like looking at a car wreck," she said. "A lot of us were looking at it incredulously. I mean we're sitting here looking at her bedroom. ... But think about the families that have been destroyed."

When you contrast our coverage of the "Mansion Madam" and "Barbie Bandits" with the coverage of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick's legal troubles, you can't help but see a difference in tone. And Vick hasn't been criminally charged with anything.

There are many unanswered questions about Vick's off-the-field activities, and the allegations about his involvement in dogfighting are real. But it's troubling to see the rush to judgement, particularly in Internet blogs and columns. There is an incredible amount of hatred being leveled at Vick, when others who find themselves in trouble seem to be given the benefit of the doubt.

• Contact Angela Tuck by e-mail at insideajc@ajc.com, by phone at 404-526-5819 by fax at 404-526-5610 or by writing P.O. Box 4689, Atlanta, GA.