Posted on 02/03/2006 9:00:56 AM PST by TrebleRebel
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US media has so far largely shied away from reproducing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed carried in several European newspapers, citing the potentially offensive nature of the drawings.
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Editors contacted at several news organizations throughout the country said they were covering the escalating row over the cartoons but had generally decided not to reprint them or air them on television out of respect for their readers or viewers.
"If I were faced with something that I know is gonna be offensive to many of our readers, I would think twice about whether the benefit of publication outweighed the offense it might give," Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at the Washington Post, told AFP.
Keith Richburg, the paper's foreign editor, said he had ruled out running the cartoons, even to better illustrate news articles about the row, as they would likely offend readers.
"This is a clear example where people would find those offensive so we don't see any particular reason to do it just for shock value," he said.
Hiatt and Richburg said the paper had also ruled out running the cartoons -- as several European newspapers have done -- to defend the right to free speech and in solidarity with the Danish newspaper that first published them. The drawings have sparked violent protests and boycotts of Danish products across the Muslim world.
One of the cartoons shows the Muslim prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise is running out of virgins for suicide bombers.
The Islamic religion bans depictions of Mohammed.
Peter Gavrilovich, foreign editor of the daily Detroit Free Press in the state of Michigan, which has one of the largest Arab communities outside the Middle East, said it was out of the question for his paper to reprint the cartoons, either to illustrate the story or to show solidarity with counterparts in Europe.
"I don't think we would run a cartoon in this newspaper that would be deemed offensive to any religious figure," Gavrilovich told AFP. "We're very careful in terms of any photo or any caricature that we run."
Maria Henson, deputy foreign editor at the Sacramento Bee in California, said her publication had not yet decided whether to reprint the cartoons and was planning to run an editorial on the issue this weekend.
The New York Times declined to comment for this article.
CNN television on Thursday showed copies of European newspapers that have printed the cartoons but blocked out the images of Mohammed saying it did not wish to offend viewers.
The television network ABC for its part showed a copy of a French newspaper with one of the cartoons clearly visible. The drawing depicts God speaking with the prophet and telling him: "Stop complaining Mohammed. We've all been caricatured."
The NBC network also gave coverage to the uproar but said it had decided against airing the cartoons, which were nonetheless available on the network's website.
One editorial, written by a syndicated columnist and carried Thursday in several newspapers, defended the cartoons as a form of free expression.
"Until Muslim nations and peoples get the idea that free expression means freedom to offend as well as the necessary correlative -- to be offended -- we have a problem," the editorial, written by Kathleen Parker, said.
~~ and Christians!
OMG - is the ACLU going to come out and sue for censorship? *holds breath*
You know, blackie, I almost put Christians in my post. Thanks for the addition, you are sure right.
I knew you were thinking that. :)
Great minds think alike. LOL
Cartoons make them want to rape and kill, loot and burn,...but then again what doesn't?
They find cartoons offensive but raping and decapitating 10 yr old Christian school girls or the torture murder of American soldiers and stringing up their bodies for further humiliation... these things they all find very amusing...
imo
Bullshit you liar.
Nice home page.
Thanks, yours too, especially your "Nice Niece.":)
I probably should add some bio on mine.
Niece was only 18 then. That's her high school prom picture. She's 20 now and looks even better. That's a scanned in picture and the detail isn't the best, but not bad.
I'll tell her you liked the pic of her. She will be pleased.
Brit had a little "F U Islam" smile on his face.
The old curmudgeon hasn't lost his appreciation of female beauty. :)
This is a real news story, and they refuse to run the images not out of "sensitivity", but from sheer cowardice. Their job is to provide the images and let readers decide for themselves if they are worth rioting over or not.
This is getting to be really funny and another wonderful illustration of the uselessness and anti-American bias of the MSM. By not publishing the cartoons they are doing the same kind of public suppression of the news that the did with the Swiftvets. As a result, the Swiftvets got their story out through the Internet and talk radio. By the end of the campaign everybody knew about them and their story and the MSM just looked silly for not accurately reporting on the Swiftvets. By not publishing the cartoons the MSM force everyone who wants to know what all the fuss is about to go to the Internet and websites like FR. Once again the MSM are shown to be a bunch of anti-American news suppressing whores, the very opposite of ethical journalists.
Great post!! Everybody ought to bookmark this one.
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