The New York Times has engaged in a delicate exercise in its edition of Tuesday, January 13th describing the news of Charlie Hebdo number devoted to a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad without showing it. A strict application of the rule referred after the killings in Paris by the director of the newspaper, Dean Baquet, which prohibits the publication of anything that “is intended deliberately to offend the religious sensibilities.” “After careful consideration,” the New York Times officials decided that “to describe the designs in question give enough information to readers” to understand the situation.
In an American society where religions have retained considerable influence, the newspaper was not alone in making this choice, fueling heated debates about the limits of freedom of expression and the responsibilities of the media. The news agency Associated Press and CNN news channels, MSNBC and NBC News, to name only the most prestigious, have done the same and decided to hide the controversial cartoons, reminding them vis-a concern -vis anything that might appear as “insensitive” or “potentially offensive”. NPR has stated the same thing.
“Security teams”
The head of CNN Worldwide, Jeff Zucker, presented the argument that according to the American press “From a journalistic point of view, we feel that we want and that we should use these images. But from my point of view responsible for the security of our teams around the world is more important for now.” The same argument was made before January 12th by the spokesman of the White House, Josh Earnest, invited to comment on statements made three years earlier by his predecessor, Jay Carney.
Carney was asked about “judgment” that led Charlie Hebdo to publish the cartoons “deeply offensive” of the Prophet Mohammed in September 2012. Earnest, recalling the importance of freedom of expression sanctified by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and the fact that no act of violence could be justified by the publication of cartoons, had said that the White House had to wonder about the consequences of such publications for personal, military or diplomatic .
The Washington Post, which had not published the first contested drawings of Charlie Hebdo at the time, with another editorial choices. In the aftermath of the massacre of Paris, he had republished the cuff of Sharia Hebdo 2011, but in its page reviews, alongside an editorial warning against the temptation of self-censorship. Tuesday the 13th, on the eve of the release of the new issue of Charlie Hebdo, other daily news published the cover designed by Luz at the bottom of the first page of the Style supplement. Since its release on Monday the drawing was reproduced on the blog Comic Riffs of the daily newspaper devoted to Michael Cavna newspaper cartoon.
On Tuesday, the director of the Washington Post, Martin Baron, said the line of his newspaper prohibited the publication of “what precisely is deliberately or unnecessarily offensive to members of religious groups,” and the cover of the new model having not fall into this category. The mediator of the New York Times, Margaret Sullivan, instead defended the position of everyday life, which earned him his own admission, a record number of comments, mostly critical. She regretted Wednesday morning that his newspaper did not consider it necessary to review its internal policy, saying the design published Wednesday in Paris was neither shocking nor gratuitously offensive” and that he “definitely worth significant information.