The cartoon controversy

Steve Smith asked the group this morning whether they thought we should publish the cartoons that have sparked riots in the Middle East. On one hand, the cartoons are clearly offensive and we don’t want to be party to the dissemination of racist material. On the other hand, it would help readers better understand the controversy if they could see the images that sparked it. Smith said the newspaper has decided against publishing the cartoons, but wanted to revisit the decision.

Features editor Pia Hansen, who is Danish, has been following the controversy closely. She said the cartoons were originally published in September by a “fairly conservative” newspaper in Denmark as a commentary on immigration policies, and that some of the more offensive items now circulating weren’t originally in that paper. Hansen felt we shouldn’t publish the cartoons because they are widely available on the internet for anyone to see.

Opinion page editor Doug Floyd said that regardless of availability, the decision of whether to publish should be made according to our own standards dealing with offensive content. The question, he said, comes down to whether viewing the cartoons is necessary to fully understand the story.

Smith pointed out that the outrage stems from the Quran prohibition of producing any image of Muhammed, which can be easily explained without recreating the images themselves.

Then comes the question of simply linking to the cartoons online. The rationale being that we aren’t really publishing them, and that readers must make a conscious decision to follow the link and view them. I argued that this would be the same as (theoretically) printing copies of the cartoons, sealing them in envelopes and including them as an insert in the newspaper. Smith said he wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to that option were it not technologically prohibitive.

We do have a fairly recent precedent involving a decades-old cartoon depicting caricatures of Native Americans that was the subject of a history column. In that case, we opted not to publish the cartoon, either in print or online, but we also didn’t have the luxury of providing a link.

Thoughts?