American Newspaper Publishes Danish Mohammed Cartoon

While all of us Infidels agree with Baron's post below that we are all now Danes, the truth is, America has not begun to stand with the Danes on the cartoon issue.

Honestly, I am ashamed. And, I want to say sorry to our European brothers, but it means nothing.

However, there is a light here. The Philadelphia Inquirer has become the first American paper to publish the Danish Mohammed cartoons:


NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the few U.S. newspapers to publish a caricature of the Prophet Mohammad from a series that sparked a wave of protests by Muslims, defended the action on Sunday by saying it was just doing its job.

"This is the kind of work that newspapers are in business to do," said Amanda Bennett, the newspaper's editor.

The Inquirer on Saturday published the most controversial image, which depicted the Prophet with a turban resembling a lit bomb, and it posted on its Web site an Internet link to the rest of the cartoons.

The Inquirer included a note with its publication of the image which read, in part, "The Inquirer intends no disrespect to the religious beliefs of any of its readers. But when a use of religious imagery that many find offensive becomes a major news story, we believe it is important for readers to be able to judge the content of the image for themselves."

The note compared the image with the earlier publication of a 1987 photograph by Andres Serrano of a crucifix in urine, a work which angered many Christians.

Bennett said in an article on the Inquirer's Web site that the newspaper published the Mohammad cartoon to help convey the issue.

"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," Bennett said.

Most U.S. news outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and USA Today, have declined to run any of the images so far, instead describing them in words as they cover the outraged reaction by Muslims to the cartoons.

Many broadcast programs and news networks including ABC have shown either full or partially obscured images of the cartoons.

"You run it because there's a news reason to run it," the paper quoted Bennett as saying. "The controversy does not appear to have died down. It's still a news issue."

The Inquirer is owned by Knight Ridder Inc..


Thank you, Philadelphia Inquirer.