To a great extent, I sympathize with the reluctance of major newspapers and television networks to reproduce the Danish cartoons that so upset a select subset of Moslems. Their employees haven’t volunteered for combat. The prudent course is to avoid giving Islamofascists an excuse to kill or maim them.
The doyennes of the media have, however, taken a different line. Their decision to withhold information from their readers and viewers doesn’t stem from fear. Oh, no, it represents high-minded respect for the dignity of Islam. NRO’s Media Blog has rounded up a sample of editorial justifications, such as this one from CBS:
At CBS News, the decision was made not to run the cartoons. “We could explain it, so we didn’t need to show it,” says Linda Mason, CBS News senior vice president, standards and special projects, who compares the decision to one not to show dead soldiers. “Any rendering of Muhammad is an insult to Muslims, and desecration is even worse,” she says, adding that the decision was made out of a desire not to unnecessarily offend, not because of the demonstrations or “out of fear of retribution.”
On CBSNews.com, a photo appeared featuring a man holding a newspaper that contained an image of the cartoon. Mike Sims, director of news and operations at CBSNews.com, quickly ordered it taken off the site. “You could not read the cartoon, but I even thought [what was there] was too much,” he says. “I think we’ve proven we can tell the story without offending Muslims.”
I’m willing to take CBS News at its word: that it isn’t afraid that its employees will be shot, stabbed or bombed. Unhappily, its lofty motives lead to a serious distortion of the news. To call these drawings an “insult” or a “desecration” leaves the impression that they are vile images that would offend a reasonable adherent of Islam. Yet the fact is that they aren’t.
By my reckoning, which the reader can check for himself, five contain nothing critical of Islam (one pokes fun at Jyllands-Posten’s “PR stunt”), three present ambiguous or positive views of Mohammed (
Do men like Mike Sims of CBSNews.com believe that Islam, uniquely among religions and ideologies, deserves to be shielded from negative commentary? Yes, I suspect that they do. A combination of loathing for the leaders of their own country, muzzy-headed sympathy for “oppressed” non-Westerners and subliminal fear has turned them into dhimmis. Their endorsement of the extremists’ characterization of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, coupled with refusal to let the public see for itself, is strong evidence that, in their hearts, they now serve the Caliph-to-be rather than Western civilization.
Comments