“Timid journalism has produced material so ludicrous as to be beyond satire. In the UK, The Telegraph ran a photograph of someone reading an edition of Charlie Hebdo with the cover blurred because it contained an image of Muhammad.”
“Not without fear or favour: how the world’s media lost their nerve after Paris” Julie Szego.
Ok, I know that this will offend some of you, but here’s a photo of my penis. (I wouldn’t normally do this, but I’m trying to make a point and, after all the talk about Larry Pickering, it was the first thing I thought of.)
Oh no, apparently the jpeg file is too big to load, but let’s just ignore that and pretend, it’s there, ok.
Well, it’s mainly there for the purposes of argument, not for the purposes of being aesthetically pleasing or in the hope of attracting fan mail. (No, I’m not going to say that it has its own post code; that’s the sort of pathetic joke that I’d never make!)
Let’s say for some reason this post and/or the hypotheical photo of my penis becomes newsworthy. Um, I can’t think of any reason why it would, so I’m stumped at this point to come up with a good reason, so let’s just roll with it.
In reporting the story, are media outlets demonstrating timid journalism if they don’t publish the photo. Or if they pixelate it. Or are they just demonstrating good sense.
Ok, I’ve just realised why my penis may become newsworthy. I’m using as an allegory for the cartoons of Muhammed in Charles Hedbo, but I’d like to point out to any violent fundamentalist Muslim reading this, that this should not be taken as a sign of disrespect, as, like many men, I worship my appendage in ways that are hard for non-believers to understand.
However, let’s put my penis to one side…
All right, I now see how hard it was for Benny Hill to stop once he got started.
Well, anyway, the point I was trying to make was:
Surely freedom of speech also includes the freedom to be silent. Surely, in spite of this journalist’s opinion, Not without fear or favour: how the world’s media lost their nerve after Paris, the media do have a right to not publish something they think may offend. Surely, just because you support someone’s right to say or draw something, you’re not compelled to repeat it, publish it or share on Facebook.
