OTOH, here at the new media, we don't shy away...
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.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1570744/posts
My commentary on the matter if anyone would like to read it.. vanity alert!
No surprise. The media is on the terrorist's side.
Wouldn't it be better if EVERY newspaper worldwide (non-Muslim presumably) just printed them? Then they'd have to bomb everyone.
People just turn to the web to find the cartoons. Another step in confirming the future demise of the MSM.
OTOH, here at the new media, we don't shy away...
...but making sport of quadruple amputee soldiers is acceptable. < /sarc >
I noticed many of them did NOT shy away from printing the Toles cartoon.
Translation: We're afraid too many viewers would laugh and decide the cartoons aren't nearly offensive enough to incite a people to murderous rage, so we decided to censor the basis of the news we "report".
"The Islamic religion bans depictions of Mohammed."
Well, OK ... it logically follows that Muslims are saying Mohammed actually IS a cartoon, then, now doesn't it?
And, not from the Danish media, but let's not leave out:
They are pretty lame.
Let's also not forget that Mohammed (piss be upon him) was a drug addled pedophile.
Well, how about REAL pictures!
WE don't NEED cartoons. Heh!
We'll do it.
You beat me to it!
They also shy away from printing the truth.....
Good ol' CSPAN- Washington Journal had them on this morning.
It was kinda funny...Pedro was like "these" cartoons; as the camera slowly panned across the images..
Fox ran them last night on Brit Hume.
Funny, I don't recall them showing this much...sensitivity regarding Robert Mapplethorpe's infamous work.
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