Temple: Fear a factor in cartoon decisions

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Does the violent response to the Danish cartoons of Muhammad provide a dramatic explanation for the decline in the number of editorial cartoonists in recent years at American newspapers?

I hope that's not the case.

But it would be easy to believe, based on the decisions of most editors and publishers this week. It would be easy to believe that offending some readers is not a price they're willing to pay.

With few exceptions, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, Austin American-Statesman and Rocky Mountain News, most newspapers decided not to show their readers any of the images, despite the fact that they're clearly newsworthy.

(In the interest of full disclosure: The Rocky linked to them from its Web site starting Feb. 2 and published an editorial Tuesday accompanied by one of the Danish cartoons, one that I thought was actually humorous. You can find the editorial at RockyMountainNews.com, but this conclusion will give you its gist: "Freedom must imply the right to offend religious believers - as well as the members of every other organization or group. Otherwise, we will have ceded our freedoms to the veto of the most intolerant among us. The intolerant in Europe and throughout the Muslim world are now trying to exercise such a veto. They must not be allowed to succeed." Today we publish a second Danish drawing as part of a package of controversial cartoons in Commentary on Page 10C.)

The standard explanation by editors who took the opposite course, from The Associated Press, which declined to distribute the cartoons on its wire, to National Public Radio, which wouldn't even link to them from its Web site, and most newspapers is that the drawings are offensive and that the story can be told just fine by describing them.

"I believe that our audience can, through our reports - on radio and the Web - get a very detailed sense of what's depicted in the cartoon. By not posting it on the Web, we demonstrate a respect for deeply held religious beliefs," Bill Marimow of NPR said.

Can you understand, now, why I ask the question about why cartoonists are disappearing from the staffs of American newspapers? The number is down in two decades from about 200 to the low 80s today, according to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

Cartoons are, by their very nature, blunt instruments. They often upset, even outrage. I can tell you that based on the angry response I've had to field to cartoons by our Ed Stein and Drew Litton.

"Nearly all cartoonists worth their salt have enraged some portion of their readership, often when religious symbolism was part of the cartoon," Signe Wilkinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist with the Philadelphia Daily News, wrote in a column this week.

The consensus among American newspapers not to show the Danish cartoons indicates that there may be some groups publishers are reluctant to offend. Cartoonists are difficult people to rein in, so the simple answer for a newspaper is to do without them, hence the sharp drop in the number of staff cartoonists.

Their decision in this case may come back to haunt newspapers when they're faced with whether to print something that might appear to be offensive to another group. If it's not necessary to show any of these cartoons, why would it be appropriate to print something that might offend, say, Catholics, to pick a religion that has taken a lot of hits in the past few years?

The New York Times published a lengthy piece by its art critic Michael Kimmelman about the cartoons headlined, "A startling new lesson in the power of imagery." You'd think an article with that headline would show the "startling new lesson." But no, instead it printed a photograph of a collage of the Virgin Mary "with cutouts from pornographic magazines and shellacked clumps of elephant dung."

Isn't it reasonable to ask whether that decision doesn't send the message that it's OK to offend Christians but not Muslims?

I question whether we're being given the full story about why some news organizations aren't touching the cartoons.

The missing word: Fear.

It would be impossible as a responsible editor with correspondents in the Muslim world to see the violent protests and not be concerned about endangering your own staff.

An alternative newspaper in Boston, The Phoenix, put it bluntly.

"Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and as deeply as we believe in the principles of free speech and a free press, we could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year publishing history."

It's understandable other editors and publishers might not make a similar statement publicly, but it's hard to believe this concern didn't factor into their decisions.

Publishing offensive material doesn't mean that a newspaper endorses it. It can mean that a newspaper takes seriously its role of informing the public. That's what we hope to do in our special presentation on this issue in our Commentary section today. I hope you'll spend time with it, and understand that our intention is not to offend but to provide a context in which to view today's controversy.

John Temple can be reached at editor@RockyMountainNews.com or by mail at 100 Gene Amole Way, Denver, CO 80204.