More on the cartoons
I'm hopeful that the Muslims will stop rioting over these rather tame cartoons so that I can stop chastising the media for its failure to print them. It's a rare day when I find myself in agreement with "Fox News Watch's" Neal Gabler, who on Saturday's show called the newspapers and broadcast outlets that refused to run the cartoons cowards; or Slate's Michael Kinsley who wrote:
By contrast, in a spectacular exercise of self-censorship, almost every major newspaper in this country is refraining from publishing the controversial Danish cartoons, even though they are at the center of a major news story that these papers cover at length every day. The Danish paper that originally published the 12 cartoons has apologized and editors in France and Jordan who published some of them have been fired. In tomorrow's paper, you're more likely to see a picture of Anne Frank or Hitler or both in bed with Eleanor Roosevelt, all three of them naked and performing unconventional sex acts, than you are to see a perfectly respectful picture of the Prophet Mohammed. An editorial in the Times on Wednesday said that not publishing the cartoons was "a reasonable choice" since they would offend many people and "are so easy to describe in words." I am looking at a front page photo in today's Times (as I write on Thursday) of Mariah Carey singing into a microphone. Words do it justice, I think.
I've noted before that my employer, the San Diego Union-Tribune has also refused to run any of the cartoons, and the paper's ombudsman, Gina Lubrano, explained why in Monday's paper.
There's a huge difference between freedom of the press and deliberately insulting the religion of another. Some readers who are criticizing The San Diego Union-Tribune for not publishing the cartoons that have caused riots and deaths have accused the newspaper and its editors of bowing to Muslim pressure and surrendering their right to freedom of the press.
“If you're afraid, just say you're afraid,†said one reader. “It's sad to see the Union-Tribune bow down to Islamic rule,†said another.
Would seeing the cartoons help non-Muslims understand why they have been met with inexcusable violence? I doubt it. I think only a Muslim can fully comprehend the insult.
Really? Talk about condescending. If the paper were to run a story in which the N-word figured prominently, would we get a line from Lubrano that only African Americans can "fully comprehend the insult." We'll also ignore the fact that this "absolute" prohibition on images of Muhammed does not have a very strong historical record.
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Steve Breen, a great guy and a good friend of mine, supports the decision not to run the cartoons.
Steve Breen, Union-Tribune editorial cartoonist, said: “The cartoons, especially the one of Muhammad with the turban-bomb, were gratuitously provocative.†He said the same cartoon labeled “Fundamentalists†would have been fair commentary. “But when you label it 'Muhammad' and blame the founder of the religion for the misdeeds of some followers, then that's crossing the line in my book. That's provoking for the sake of provoking. It's a finger in someone's eye. I'm all for the First Amendment, and I do believe that the best cartoons are often provocative, but there are limits. We have to be responsible.â€
Unfortunately, Breen's wrong about this. Running one or more of the cartoons wouldn't be "a finger in someone's eye," in the context of a story about Muslims rioting about these cartoons. In fact, the cartoons themselves really are necessary, because I can guarantee you that most Americans' imaginations can picture much worse than the cartoons really are.
For example, here's a drawing of Ahmed and his donkey.
Just kidding, that's one of the needlessly provocative cartoons of Muhammed! And the major media feels that this is unnecessary to fully inform the public? Yes, Muslims are rioting and burning and killing over that cartoon.
The context is necessary, and most of America's newspapers and television outlets have ill-served the public.
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[...] Readers are also right to complain about the double-standard regarding the paper’s publication of years-old Abu Ghraib abuse photos and these tame Muhammed cartoons. Publishing the original photos a couple of years back was completely justifiable — the government was moving slowly to punish the abusers and public outrage definitely hurried the process along. Publishing “new” old photos now has relatively little news value. The news value certainly pales in comparison to that of the cartoons. I showed the cartoon in this post to one of my colleagues who had not seen the cartoons on Saturday and she thought I was pulling her leg that it was one of the cartoons sparking this violence. While she already thought the protests were silly, she also thought that the cartoons were much more outrageous — even after I’d shown her the more “disrespectful” ones. [...]
[...] I’m probably one of the toughest bloggers out there on the mainstream media, even though I have a foot in both the MSM world (I work for the Union-Tribune) and the blogosphere, but this was a case of the Union-Tribune doing solid investigative reporting. Longtime readers of Hoystory will know that I’m no sycophant to the Union-Tribune or the major media. For example, I’ve harshly criticized the Union-Tribune’s coverage of the cartoon-insipired Muslim rioting (see here, here and here). But the credit for exposing Cunningham goes to the Union-Tribune and the Union-Tribune alone — you can find the paper’s extensive coverage here. [...]