| | So far, out of all the thousands of newspapers in America, only three or four have shown the cartoons satirizing aspects of Islam which have caused major riots in the Muslim world. The excuse for not showing them have been, first, that the cartoons are offensive and, second, showing them would be "gratuitous" - or in other words they would not have news value or add to the debate or to the public being more knowledgeable.
[Note: Feel free not to read the rest of this if you get the point about hypocrisy when I ask if the press has broadly suppressed cartoonists who satirize aspects of Catholicism or Christianity or Southern rednecks. ]
These arguments are so transparently weak that it is almost embarrassing to have to refute them. (Oddly enough the European press has in more widespread cases shown a greater ability to think in principle and show the cartoons, correctly naming the issues as resisting intimidation and freedom of the press.) The press has never had a problem showing material that is offensive if it has news value. News value trumps whether someone is offended. The idea is if you are offended, you have two choices: Get over it or don't look at it or read it in the first place. The press did not shrink from showing photos of prisoners being humiliated at Abu Ghraib which inflamed the muslim world. They do not hesitate from showing scenes of wartime or natural catastrophe devastation or humiliation (an American soldier being dragged through the streets in Somalia). In fact, usually, graphic and sensational news photos are sought out by news organizations.
More directly relevant, cartoons are an editorial or commentary or critical function, and criticisms take a position which usually offends those who disagree. Cartoons, in particular, are usually intended to be satirical, to poke fun at their targets. There are seldom current events cartoons which don't offend whoever they are criticizing. Newspapers have not shrunk from running cartoons which portray businessmen as corrupt or even American wartime leaders as bloodthirsty or indifferent to the deaths of soldiers or civilians. Cartoons have always been free to viciously lampoon and exaggerate the vices of their objects. That is what cartoons do; they offend. And by offending or exaggerating, sometimes a point is made.
News value? There is a huge worldwide debate over a group of cartoons. How can you cover that debate within the pages of your newspaper if you don't -show- the cartoons but instead try to 'describe' them. Would you try to debate whether the Mona Lisa is a great work of art with words only, or would you have to show it.
I have long found the press to be politically biased with regard to the slant they put on news regarding people and policies they favor. Now what this craven self-censorship makes clear is that, even worse than left-right political bias, they will succumb to intimidation or political correctness, allowing it to, not merely slant their coverage of the news toward those they favor, but to actually *suppress* their coverage of the news if the heat or pressure against them is great enough.
And don't even get me started on the slippery slope precedent this sets that if some large enough pressure group says portraying an image or making a mere criticism "deeply offends us", that is reason enough to censor or suppress it.
I had known slanted the news, at least the mainstream media. I had not known the broad extent to which not only the "liberal press" but the conservative or middle of the road press as well are either incredibly stupid as to what constitutes the news or their proper function... or outright cowards and hypocrites.
PS, There are some even more ignorant arguments offered by press apologists such as journalism professor (and frequent commentator on the media) Geneva Overholser on today's NewHour: "We suppress lots of offensive things such as four-letter words...or gore."
Colossally lame arguments such as this don't require much response. If you can't see that, by contrast to the situation we are discussing, showing a four letter word rather than describing or showing a bloodsoaked scene has no news value that can't be described in words as opposed to cartoons whose nature and purpose is pictorial and satirical, I can't imagine what you are using for a reasoning....Or whether you got to be a journalism professor by virtue of affirmative action for imbeciles.
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 2/09, 4:51pm)
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