Posted on 02/07/2006 10:26:38 AM PST by summer
NEW YORK -- On Saturday, the Philadelphia Inquirer became one of the first major U.S. papers to carry a drawing featuring Muhammad -- with a lit bomb stuck in his turban -- that have sparked riots abroad. On Monday, more than two dozen Muslims offended by that decision picketed the newspaper.
"It's disrespectful to us as a people," Asim Abdur-Rashid, an imam with the Majlis Ash'Shura, an umbrella group for mosques in the Delaware Valley, told the Inquirer for a story today. "It's disrespectful to our prophet to imply that he's a prophet of violence."
The group may call for a boycott and a further protest on Friday if the newspaper does not apologize.
Amanda Bennett, The Inquirer's editor, and Carl Lavin, a deputy managing editor, talked with the protesters outside the building.
"Neither I nor the newspaper meant any disrespect to their religion or their prophet," Bennett said in her paper. "I told them I was actually really proud of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech."
But Bennett stood by the decision to publish the cartoon, saying it "is one of the things newspapers do to communicate directly with people" about issues important to all communities.
She told The New York Times, "There's been a whole history of newspapers publishing things that people would find controversial and offensive. My view is that we need to publish it for a good news reason, we need to publish in context and we need to explain to readers why we did it."
Few U.S. newspapers have reprinted the cartoon. The New York Times, in an editorial today, noted that it had not carried any of the cartoons and "much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words."
Some newspapers have carried links to the cartoon images on their Web sites, however.
In an e-mail to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau declared he would never use images of Muhammad. "Nor will I be using any imagery that mocks Jesus Christ....I may not agree with their reasons for dropping any particular strip, in fact, I usually don't, but I will defend their right and responsibility to delete material that they feel is inappropriate for their readership," he said.
"It's not censorship, it's editing. Just because a society has almost unlimited freedom of expression doesn't mean we should ever stop thinking about its consequences in the real world."
Poynter Institute faculty discussed the journalistic issues relating to the controversy in a roundtable (read the transcript or download the 21-minute podcast).
E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)
RE your post #71 - Yes, that was a good one! Thanks for linking it. I saw a lot of other good cartoons on that link (posted in my post #57 for anyone else reading this).
I want these assholes OUT OF MY COUNTRY NOW!!! How the HELL did they ever get in here and BUILD MOSQUES, ON TOP OF IT!! IT NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME ! OUT!! WHY OH WHY DO WE HAVE PUT UP WITH THEM???!!!
Oh yes, I did check out your link in #57 earlier today. It's a hoot!
Re your post #123 - Yes! That link posted in my reply #57 certainly restored my faith in FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!
I mean, seriously, think of what it would be like to wake up one morning , go down to the breakfast table to be met by your wife, your daughter, and Achmed, in a headscarf, who you just got an order from on high that you had to rent a room in your basement to, and Achmed is looking at you , shaking his head, complaining that breakfast isn'/t to his liking because your wife served Jimmy Dean sausage links with the eggs. SO you try to convince him to go ahead and eat them but he insists your wife get them off the table altogether, or he'll burn your house down. How is that any different from what we've got now, showing itself in fits and starts, and showing itself again and again if we slip up and make a terrible mistake like indulging in a little free speech. Is there any difference?
I mean, seriously, think of what it would be like to wake up one morning , go down to the breakfast table to be met by your wife, your daughter, and Achmed, in a headscarf, who you just got an order from on high that you had to rent a room in your basement to, and Achmed is looking at you , shaking his head, complaining that breakfast isn'/t to his liking because your wife served Jimmy Dean sausage links with the eggs. SO you try to convince him to go ahead and eat them but he insists your wife get them off the table altogether, or he'll burn your house down. How is that any different from what we've got now, showing itself in fits and starts, and showing itself again and again if we slip up and make a terrible mistake like indulging in a little free speech. Is there any difference?
I mean, seriously, think of what it would be like to wake up one morning , go down to the breakfast table to be met by your wife, your daughter, and Achmed, in a headscarf, who you just got an order from on high that you had to rent a room in your basement to, and Achmed is looking at you , shaking his head, complaining that breakfast isn'/t to his liking because your wife served Jimmy Dean sausage links with the eggs. SO you try to convince him to go ahead and eat them but he insists your wife get them off the table altogether, or he'll burn your house down. How is that any different from what we've got now, showing itself in fits and starts, and showing itself again and again if we slip up and make a terrible mistake like indulging in a little free speech. Is there any difference?
Oh bullshit. The MSM regularly bashes Christianity with impunity......and with pride.
But..............NOOOOOOOOOOOO way will they risk offending a "religion" soaked in the blood of thousands of Americans and untold millions of other innocents worldwide throughout its gory history. No, can't have that.
Bastards.
The New York Times also refused to publish pictures of the Holocaust, and when it was forced to publish them, it published them way in the back pages of the first section of the paper.
For years Americans didn't have a clue of what was going on those concentration camps in Poland.
No sweat. I NEVER amke a mistake, myself, but it's ok.
ROTFLMAO... :)
Mocking Christian fundamentalists, or Creationists (which as a scientifically-trained person I do myself from time to time), is not the same thing as mocking Jesus Christ. Some of the more Taliban-like fundamentalists may disagree.
It's more like mocking some mullah or dissembling CAIR spokesmuz than it is mocking Mohammed.
I believe people should be free to mock them all, including Jesus and Mohammed, and God Himself, but I believe that mocking the last three are in bad taste.
How do you feel, say, about making fun of Joseph Smith? (I suppose he would be Mormons' parallel to Jesus but I can't stop poking fun at him myself... "God have me a book with leaves of gold... unfortunately I have misplaced it." A ton o laffs, was old Joe).
Now, if anyone does want to make fun of Mohammed, this site, IslamComicBook.com, also known as Mohammed's Believe it.. or Else! shows that you're not alone -- there are some real pros on the job already.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I don't have a problem with such cartoons. I just ignore those that I disagree with.
I do have a problem with Trudeau. He's a spoiled liberal brat who claims he wouldn't never make a religious post. He would.
Is it merely a plan to distract, or do they have a somewhat bigger game afoot, with the two elements working hand in hand? Outrage, deliberately stoked or not, and the sudden appearance of a nuclear weapon on a vehicle which can reach European cities would be a recipe for blackmail writ on a global scale. If successful, then we are all in a world of fecal matter...
the infowarrior
"Oh yeah, hats off to the Philadelphia Inquirer. They had the news sense to know the cartoon was part of the story."
I was impressed that Hannity showed the 'bomb in the turbin' cartoon the other night.
Has anyone heard that the outrage is over cartoons that we haven't seen? I heard that those depict beastiality and that is what all the furor is about. Is this true?
When newspapers shield truth, these types of rumors takes hold. Rumors that can enflame hatreds.
If newspapers had run the cartoons - and said "this is what Muslim's find offensive", rumors about "bestiality" wouldn't have appeared.
Censorship, self censorship based on fear, is one of the reasons for ME paronoia.
The American MSM should not apply Muslim standards to Western reporting.
It's shameful. Too much like CNN working hand in hand with Saddam's goons to keep stuff out of the news. Totally shameful.
My thoughts too. These protests may be a good opportunity to smoke out extremist varmints who are "unappreciative" of American press freedoms.
The betting parlors in Las Vegas.
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