Every now and then, a column piques readers’ interest enough that it elicits a torrent of response.
That’s been the reaction to last Sunday’s column explaining how and why The Bee decided against running cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper.
The cartoons sparked Muslim protests in many countries when papers in Europe reprinted them, in a show of free-expression solidarity for their Scandinavian colleagues.
That served to intensify the protests, many of which became violent, leading to the deaths of some demonstrators and destruction, including the burning of Danish embassies in several countries. (The violence continued last week in Pakistan.)
The result was an international news story that landed on the front pages of American newspapers, including The Bee.
The paper joined the vast majority of U.S. papers in not publishing the cartoons, opting instead to describe them. It also provided a Web link to the cartoons.
In short, the cartoons were considered gratuitously offensive to Muslims and likened to a vile, racist slur.
I disagreed with that decision in my column, arguing that once the cartoons became international news, the paper had an obligation to publish at least one to show readers what the growing dispute was all about.
And then readers weighed in. Their messages jammed my inbox and my telephone, amounting to several dozen in all. That’s a big week around these parts.
About 80 percent disagreed with the paper’s decision, some with more heat and passion than reasoned arguments.
Many accused the paper of lacking certain male body parts, while others found the explanation that Muslims would be offended hypocritical and disingenuous.
“What seems to have motivated most of your brethren in the press can be summed up in one word – cowardice,” wrote reader Steve Mauer. “Fear of reprisals is the only thing preventing the publication of the cartoons. So the terrorists, on this point, have won. Nice job!”
“Either we as a nation, which looks to the openness and objectivity of a free press to publish everything that is ‘newsworthy,’ stand together behind the conviction of our beliefs or you better stop offending anyone!” said an e-mail from Bill Paxton in Petaluma.
“When The Bee decides to print news on the basis if it offends someone or not, then the paper has sold its soul,” wrote Ross du Clair of Elk Grove.
“The Bee wimped out by not running the cartoons and referring readers to a Web site,” reader Phil Bettens wrote in his e-mail. “This is schoolboy nonsense: I won’t show you the dirty pictures but I’ll tell you where to get them.”
Several readers again accused the paper of having a double standard for publishing a Washington Post editorial cartoon two weeks ago they felt demeaned the military and for another published last week from the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader showing Jesus Christ and Buddha drinking at a bar with an unseen Muhammad with the opening joke line, “So, Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha go into a bar … ”
“Does the publication of this cartoon mean that the publisher’s policy of non-offense applies only to those of the Muslim faith? Or is ‘worth it’ the operative phrase?” asked one reader.
“Shouldn’t all Christians be offended by the cartoon? Portraying Jesus, the very son of God, and God himself in a bar?” Pastor Terry Johnson of Calvary Chapel Westwood said in his e-mail. “Offended, yes I am. Do I consider the cartoon in poor taste, yes. But I don’t have the right to riot or claim that The Bee shouldn’t publish the cartoon. Because the blessing of free speech is the essence of freedom.”
One angry caller pointed out if the paper was concerned that the Muhammad cartoons were the equivalent of a racist slur, then why did it publish last Sunday’s Wee Pals comic strip, in which a white character says to a black friend who loaned him money, “That was real white of you.”
“You think that’s not vile and racist in cartoons for kids to read?” the caller said.
There were readers, of course, who supported the decision not to run the cartoons.
“If provoking violence to prove a point is somehow showing greater wisdom than merely describing the cartoons, it is lost on me,” said Mike Sarkisian of Sacramento in his e-mail. “Among the reasons not to publish them should be that it would cause violence as well as have sweeping ramifications in provoking ill will among a group of people who are likely to feel somewhat marginalized already.
“Osama bin Laden is certainly the benefactor of what has occurred already.”
Reader Ralph Bonds, a retired high school teacher from Sacramento, said he respected the paper’s decision and its efforts to explain in op-ed pieces the “other side of the story.”
“Acting without thinking about our own social and political context diminishes the values that support our Constitution’s First Amendment and possibly incites undeserved, baseless rage against fellow Americans of Islamic faith.”
The response from all sides is a fresh reminder that decisions about what goes into the paper and what is kept out are evaluated by watchful readers. They will let the paper know what they think.
Isn’t that what free speech is about?
