The angry protests that are continuing in the mostly-Muslim world over what its followers regard as offensive editorial caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed show–for good or bad–the power of the press and its need for sensible restraints. While recognizing the importance of freedom of the press and expression, these rights should also be coupled with press responsibility. The Pleasanton Weekly, which is one of the few newspapers, along with the New York Times that does not print editorial cartoons, carries hundreds of news stories, features, photos and advertisements that, while some may find objectionable (lingerie ads draw the most complaints), we hope are never offensive. Except for the supermarket tabloids, newspapers like ours and the dailies adhere to high quality standards that make them acceptable to readers of all ages and faiths.
That’s why few U.S newspapers have joined in the curious frenzy to reprint some or all of the 12 cartoons that were first run in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten last Sept. 30. To date, seven European newspapers have carried the drawings, which include caricatures showing Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb and another portraying him holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. The cartoons crudely equate Islam’s prophet, and by implication all of Islam, with terrorism and ignorance. Some say they look like the provocation they were intended to be when they appeared in Jyllands-Posten, which is considered to be one of Denmark’s most far-right newspapers. By reprinting them just in the last few weeks and long after Muslim leaders had expressed their outrage, the European papers in France, Germany and Spain have unnecessarily flamed the controversy, in effect ignoring the sensitivities of an entire religion to demonstrate their freedom of the press rights.
In my view, freedom of the press doesn’t equate to an irresponsible or insensitive press. Each week, we exercise editorial restraints in what we print in the Weekly. At the police stations, we may obtain the names and addresses of sexual assault victims or of juveniles in trouble, which we won’t publicly identify. A photographer might click on an unidentified body at a crash scene, a picture you’ll never see. We don’t print letters unless the writer is identified, and we reject letters that make undocumented claims or charges against community leaders or businesses. In short, we cover the news of Pleasanton and report it accurately and fairly while also showing press responsibility in what we write and in the photos we show.
Now these self-imposed restraints are again being put to the test. Are U.S. editors being intimidated in their decisions not to publish the cartoons that have become an integral part of the story? CNN tells viewers flat out that it won’t show the negative caricatures of Mohammed because “their publication would only add fuel to the controversy itself.” Because of the protests, the editor of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten has taken “an extended leave of absence.” In France, the owner of France Soir, which also printed the cartoons, has sacked its managing editor. President Bush, who pledged to “act boldly in freedom’s cause” in his State of the Union address, was publicly silent last week as he stood alongside King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose government has just arrested the editor of the Jordanian tabloid al-Shihan that published three of the Mohammed caricatures.
Publishing the caricatures last year was probably insensitive. Reprinting them again across Europe was seen as provocative. But now as mayhem spreads throughout the Muslim world and also against U.S. interests there, editors are hearing from readers who want to see the cartoons that started it all. It’s time for the restraints to end and let a free press report the story.
