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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew ‘Charlie Hebdo’ editor scolds Chuck Todd: When you blur our cover, ‘you blur out democracy’
Hear, Hear!
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/new-charlie-hebdo-editor-scolds-us-press-when-you-blur-our-cover-you-blur-out-democracy/
On Sundays edition of Meet the Press, Charlie Hebdos new editor-in-chief admonished American media outlets for blurring the cover of this weeks issue of the controversial satirical magazine.
After recounting what it has been like for the magazines editorial staff in the days and weeks since the attack, Gerard Briard was asked by Chuck Todd about the Popes statement that you cannot provoke, you cannot insult other peoples faith, you cannot mock it, and that freedom of speech is a right and a duty that must be displayed without offending.
Every time we draw a cartoon of Muḥammad, Briard replied, every time we draw a cartoon of the prophet, every time we draw a cartoon of God, we defend the freedom of religion. We declare that God must not be a political public figure, but that he must be a private figure.
(snip)
What they must understand, Briard continued, is that when they blur it out when they decline to publish it they blur out democracy, secularism, freedom of religion, and they insult the citizenship.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Gerard Briard would have us think that it's a duty, I say it's a choice for the press.
I agree with him that attacking hypocrisy is a noble thing for him to do, AND I agree with the Pope that it's not necessary to be offensive.
This is an interesting dilemma but it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
I'm all about subtleties.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)Yes, MSNBC gets to decide that they don't even have to address the story or issue. But showing the object of the controversy Blurred, in the context of "News" is cowardly.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)HappyMe
(20,277 posts)to decide if it should be blurred or not. People then have the right to call them cowards if they don't like it. That's how it works. By now I'm sure everybody and his brother has seen the cartoons.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)There's not a thing wrong with respecting the sensitivities of a minority.
Hebdo is just pissed that their little campaign isn't getting the boost he'd like for it to, IMO.
Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)can see the bigger picture. myopic thinking for some.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)He says:
"God must not be a political public figure... he must be a private figure"...
So what does he do? He makes him a public AND a political figure.
It's a very customized and convenient interpretation, for him.
It's nonsense.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)is what i see so often in other issues which for me is the opposite of what they say out loud.
it reminds me of 911. how the rw engineered the argument for hate toward muslims. this is only the left wing engineering of hate toward muslims. and they are yelling that not only should it be allowed, we all must participate, just like during 911.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)As does seabeyond's post 5.
It isn't as black and white as people think it is.
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)no obligation to publish (whatever it is).
suits the oligarchs down to their shoes, since "the press" is owned by 6 megacorporations anyway.
chrisa
(4,524 posts)Dear American news media - they're going to kill you anyways. It doesn't matter if you blur the Charlie Hebdo cover out. They still hate you. They hate everyone who isn't an extremist Muslim. Heck, they even hate other extremist Muslims.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)The editor haz a sad because his cartoon was blurred and the media mutiplier effect was killed by blurring the image.
No ass-kissing here. NOT blurring the image would have been taking sides every bit as much as blurring it.
They reported on the matter, they did their job.
Their job is NOT to do the work of the publisher by publishing the cartoon.
See what I mean?
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)what they can and cannot publish, other editors probably don't care what this guy thinks should be published.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)I seem to have missed the vote on what their cover should have on it. Or was the vote only open to French citizens?
Here's a hint - what a privately owned magazine chooses to put on its cover is not a matter of 'Democracy'.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)making a hauling with others death.
people did not buy it for a reason. and the reason they buy it now, is not the content.
randome
(34,845 posts)I mean, who cares, right? "I am {insert corporate logo here}" is enough, isn't it?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]There is nothing you can't do if you put your mind to it.
Nothing.[/center][/font][hr]
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)These Islamist wingut self-proclaimed Thought Police enforcers are psychotic / sociopathic vigilates, no better than George Zimmerman. These terrorists ARE, themselves, racists. Their agenda is proof that they are incapable of being citizens or even residents in a western democracy.
Islamic wingnuts shouldn't be catered to any more than the American religious right variety.
I'm glad that at least here, the US has not gone as far as Europe has, down the slippery slope of criminalizing free speech. This appears to have been the beginning of a wake up call in Europe, as to why that is a very bad idea. At least that's one pitfall, for once, that the US didn't dive into headlong.
I agree with Briard 100%.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts).
MSNBC is within their First Amendment rights to report the story, or not, and to blur the image, or not.
That they reported the story is commendable, and being sensitive to anyone who might be offended is VERY commendable.
But the most commendable thing is that by blurring the image, they remained NEUTRAL; the didn't give the image more press than it deserved.
Good for them, and Briard is just an ordinary Capitalist trying to make a buck, trying to make more press by making a stink.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)a surprisingly short hop from choosing to blur the pictures, to being required by law to blur the pictures. THEN, we have a problem. All that would take is for enough peoples' "sensibilities" to harden into laws that everyone must comply with the pc majority view, without a choice.
That isn't hard to imagine.
Yes, any media outlet can (for now) choose to blur the images. But Briard's point is that in choosing to do so, they are knuckling under to the attitudes that killed those people on his staff so recently, AND they are failing to stand up for the democratic principle for which they died.
I for one, think that's pretty shitty and cowardly, on the part of a fellow media outlet. And I think Briard was very civil in the way he made the point. It needed to be said.
Being neutral toward religious terrorism is not in the least commendable.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)We can't have it both ways.
The blurring was a free choice, supported by the First Amendment just as not-blurring it would have been.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)It is a free choice, subject to criticism. I have said why I think the choice made was a mistake and said why, and so did Briard. That's as it should be, and how it should stay. But those who the media outlets are being fair to, would not have it so. And that is the point, it's what CH's cartoon was created to say in the first place.
CH drew a cartoon to express its views. The terrorists expressed theirs with murder. Murder is not free speech, it is feudalistic oppression, and that is exactly what the principles in constitutional democracies were designed to prevent.
Even if some people disagree with CH, this is an entirely insensitive time to push that point, in the wake of these murders.
If the left sides with the Islamist position on this, it is making a HUGE mistake. Not only politically, but in terms of democratic principles which cannot be sacrified, even for what seems to be a "good cause".
Kablooie
(18,631 posts)Only his view should be freely expressed.
No.
He is free to his view and the media is free to censor it if they don't want to propagate it.
That is their expression of free speech.
They may not like your views and you may not like theirs and neither is obligated to expose people to views they don't agree with.