Is There A Difference If Newspapers Did Not Print Those Danish Cartoons But Did Publish Them On Their Web Sites Or Provided Links Outside Their Country To Where They Could Be Viewed?

Philip Stone February 9, 2006

US media, with just a few exceptions, did not show the Danish cartoons exercising their freedom of the press responsibility, but a Google image search found the most offensive of those cartoons on the San Francisco Chronicle web site, but not in the newspaper. In the UK not one newspaper printed the cartoons but that didn’t stop some national newspapers from offering direct links to sites outside the country where the cartoons could be viewed.
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Those extraneous links were later withdrawn, but the actions do raise a question being voiced more and more of whether digital media should play by the same responsibility or ethics rules as traditional media in practicing freedom of the press.

The obvious answer, at least obvious to those of us who believe deeply in the social responsibility theory of the press— is that it is not the platform the press uses that is the issue, but rather it is the story itself.

At ftm, we have been asked why we did not print the cartoons. Simple answer – since such cartoons are considered offensive by a religion as a whole – no matter how they might go about protesting that offense – then it would not be responsible to print them. So then the point is made that we are not a print newspaper but rather a digital newsletter and that the rules that apply to newspapers don’t apply in the digital world. And again we strongly disagree. It is not the platform; it is the story.

That debate seems to have taken place at many media editorial conferences around the world. Many newspapers chose not to use the cartoons in their print editions, but some seemed to believe that rules for digital publication were different. But just to play it safe, instead of publishing the cartoons on one’s own web site just offer a link to a web site outside the country. That lasted for a couple of days and then it seems that common sense once again prevailed.

Whether you print the offending items yourself or you point people to where they can find them the lack of responsibility is still the same. The fact that many publications withdrew links (without admitting they had those links in the first place) indicates editors understood they were being hyporcrites  -- you either showed the cartoons on all your media platforms or on none.  

One problem for editors, of course, is knowing where that line is drawn between being responsible and holding back, or whether to go ahead and print.  Although the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten has apologized for publishing the cartoons is that because he believes his newspaper was wrong or because he was willing to do whatever he could to calm a very dangerous situation in which people were losing their lives?

The newspaper’s culture editor, Fleming Rose, who ordered up the 12 cartoons says he is not sorry the newspaper printed them.  And to show just how liberal and even-handed the Danish press is, he is being quoted as saying that he is contacting Iran’s top-selling newspaper, Hamshari, that is running a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, so that Jyllands-Posten can print those same cartoons on the same day as Hamshari. Two wrongs do not make a right. Will he never learn?

Amnesty International has also entered the debate, pointing out there is no question of the fundamental right of freedom of opinion and expression, “but the right to freedom of expression is not absolute – neither for the creators of material nor their critics.”  It believes “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence cannot be considered legitimate freedom of expression”. Are the cartoons guilty of that?

The Associated Press, for instance, with customers the world over made the decision not to distribute the drawings well before any violence had broken out.  Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll summed up as well as any how major news organizations should have treated the situation.  “We don’t distribute (for newspaper read “print” for broadcaster read “broadcast”) content that is known to be offensive, with rare exceptions. This is not one of those exceptions. We made the decision in December and have looked at the issue again this week and reaffirmed that decision not to distribute.”

For all the negatives from this incident there does seem to be one overwhelming positive – the reaffirmation by so many governments around the world in the freedom of the press and the fact that governments have no place in telling the media what it should or should not do in its coverage. Many governments admitted they disagreed with the decision to print, but that was the decision for the newspapers, and governments cannot control what the press does. Democracy at its finest.

One problem with incidents like this is that it can provide openings for government entities to poke around where they don’t belong. Case in point being the European Commission. It says it wants to work with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ)  in coming up with a media code of conduct.  Both organizations should tell the EC where it can put that idea!. Nothing wrong with the EBU or IFJ coming up with voluntary codes or making advice available if they believe that is the thing to do, but the EC has no business getting involved.

Thankfully, exactly the view of some enlightened European government leaders such as Dutch premier Jan Peter Balkenende. He told the Dutch Lower House of Parliament that his government wanted no part of any EC imposed code of conduct on how religions should be treated, and government entities or politicians even suggesting to the media that they set up a code of conduct were inappropriate.

And that from a government leader whose country has experienced its own media tragedy vis a vis Islam – the murder by a Muslim on an Amsterdam street of filmmaker Theo van Gogh who produced the 10-minute movie “Submission” about women in Islam that many Muslims found offensive.

Meanwhile, the unfortunate Danes are really suffering. Embassies burned, economic boycotts said to be costing millions of Euros daily, their citizens threatened, illustrators in hiding, some 1,000 web sites hacked into, etc. For a country with a reputation of being one of the world’s most liberal and tolerant it really does not deserve what it is going through. And thankfully there does seem to be a diplomatic feeling among many world leaders that enough is enough.

One side affect is that the Danish table tennis team has canceled appearances in Qatar and Kuwait next week on the advice of the Danish government. It’s a pity the situation is still so volatile. Just remember what ping-pong diplomacy did for US-China relations 40 years ago! Maybe it could have worked for the Danes, too.

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“Unlimited Vacation” For Mr. Rose - February 10, 2006

Following reports of a major dispute between the editor-in-chief of Jyllands-Posten and Fleming Rose, the cultural editor, over Rose’s plan to print an anti-Semitic cartoon, the newspaper has now ordered Rose to take “unlimited vacation.”

“Jyllands-Posten in no circumstances will publish Holocaust cartoons from an Iranian newspaper,” said Carsten Juste, editor-in chief.

Rose had said he wanted to print cartoons making fun of Christianity and Judaism to show everyone could be criticized in multicultural Denmark.