Posted on 01/13/2015 6:05:15 PM PST by Second Amendment First
After the killings at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo last week by Islamist extremists, other news media, including web-based outlets, chose to republish some of its cartoons that many Muslims found so offensive.
Some American newspapers, including The New York Times, did not. They drew criticism from some free-speech advocates who called the decision cowardly in the face of a terrorist attack.
American newspapers are confronting a variation of that choice: whether to republish the cover-page cartoon of the new Charlie Hebdo print edition, due out Wednesday.
It shows a tearful caricature of the Prophet Muhammad holding the by-now iconic “Je suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”) placard with the words “Tout est pardonné” (“All is forgiven”) above him. Many viewed the cartoon image as a conciliatory message from the new editors of Charlie Hebdo after the carnage of the Paris attack.
Others said the new cover continues a Charlie Hebdo tradition of intentionally offending Muslims by depicting their prophet, an act that many Muslims consider blasphemous.
The choice to republish the image (The Times, again, is not) goes to the heart of the debate about what constitutes free expression versus gratuitous images that at least some viewers find offensive, newspaper executives and other journalists said.
They also said the choice touches on differences in American and French standards for offensiveness. It is further complicated by a legitimate news reason — Charlie Hebdo’s response to the deadly assault — that would seem to justify showing precisely what the newspaper did in its response.
“Newspapers have to consider their audience, who reads their publication,” said Martha Steffens, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and an executive board member at the International Press Institute, an advocacy group. “Every news outlet is not going to make the same decision.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Does every news outlet have to publish every cartoon that offends people to the point of violence? I admire Hebdo and congratulate them on their courage, but they don’t carry a whip, either. The NY Times can publish the cartoon or not, as their editor and publisher sees fit, and let whoever wants guess about their motives.
Love the hooves!
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