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February 9, 2006
Some American Journalists Reject Dhimmi Status
Posted by Dave Blount at February 9, 2006 7:57 PM
Not all American journalists are using the contrived overreaction to some bland Danish cartoons as an opportunity to embrace dhimmitude. WorldNetDaily, which has been displaying the images since the whole phony controversy erupted, reports that a few journalists have enough character to be disgusted by the refusal of the AP and others to let people see the pictures for themselves.
Don Holland, editor of the Daily Press, rips into the AP:
The mindless violence by Islamic radicals is par for the course. But what is incredible is that the Associated Press, which distributes news stories and photos from across the globe, has decided that you shouldn't see it. ... The point is not whether it is offensive or not. The point is that it is part of a worldwide news story.
As Holland observes but the AP is apparently too frightened to acknowledge:
The fact that radical Muslims are going berserk over a cartoon says more about their mindset than it does about a cartoon. The source of the riots and mayhem is not a cartoon. It is growing friction in a clash of cultures.
As WND reports, the editorial department of the New York Press walked out en masse to protest the publisher's refusal to run the cartoons. Tim Marchman, who resigned as managing editor, had this to say about cowardly media outlets that suppress the cartoons:
We're extending the supposedly spontaneous — but in fact politically organized and politically motivated — rioters veto power over what runs in American newspapers. It's ridiculous and indefensible.
Jim Michaels of USA Today among many others has taken the absurd position that there wouldn't be any point in letting people see the cartoons. But as Philadelphia Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett explains:
This is the kind of work that newspapers are in business to do. ... We're running this in order to give people a perspective of what the controversy's about, not to titillate, and we have done that with a whole wide range of images throughout our history. ... You run it because there's a news reason to run it.
Michelle Malkin, who is a columnist at WND, couldn't help but notice the double-standard in comparison with the Abu Ghraib photos that the MSM plastered everywhere possible. Noting that outlets like the Dallas Morning News and CNN would only run the cartoons after pixelating them as if they were pornography, Malkin asks:
Funny, I can't recall any newspapers that pixelated the Abu Ghraib photos. Can you?
Hat tip: Wiggins
