News outlets are censoring photos of Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammad cartoons in their reporting of the Paris shooting, prompting outrage from readers who are calling the decision cowardly.
How the terrorists win: @Telegraph is now blurring the cover Mohammed cartoon of #CharlieHebdo in its reporting pic.twitter.com/DffGzIrQZI
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) January 7, 2015
The Telegraph tweeted a photo of the late Charlie Hebdo Editor-in-Chief Stéphane Charbonnier, who died in the attack, but they cropped out the cartoon which was predominantly shown in the original photo.
#CharlieHebdo cartoonist was on al Qaeda’s wanted list: http://t.co/nEojRxbetR (Pic: EPA) pic.twitter.com/m8oO7gnXJf
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) January 7, 2015
Other photos from the same shoot reveal the photos were meant to show off the cartoon.
RIP Charlie Hebdo’s editor Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier. He and 11 colleagues were murdered by Islamic terrorists. pic.twitter.com/Va7uK05oRY
— Steven Chesser (@TheChesserGroup) January 7, 2015
“I don’t feel as though I’m killing someone with a pen.” -Stephane Charbonnier 1967-2015 #CharlieHebdo pic.twitter.com/RmJlpSsaNt
— brent bambury (@notrexmurphy) January 7, 2015
“Blurring Charlie Hebdo covers tells me you are cowards, unworthy of reporting the news,” one reader said, and thousands of others made similar statements.
The New York Daily News also censored a 2011 photo of Charbonnier from Getty Images, which offers the original, uncensored image on its site.
At least the Telegraph’s starting to back off because the outlet deleted the censored magazine cover photo from an article.
Maybe the Telegraph’s editors finally figured out if they give up free speech, they give up their jobs.
Editors at Financial Times, however, decided to “blame the victim” in a statement which criticized Charlie Hebdo for its “editorial foolishness.”
“It is merely to say that some common sense would be useful at publications such as Charlie Hebdo, and Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten [another publisher of cartoons critical of Muhammad], which purport to strike a blow for freedom when they provoke Muslims, but are actually just being stupid,” the London news outlet stated.
But where does it end? If news outlets are afraid to speak freely out of fear of radical Islamists, who else will they be afraid of?
Freedom of the press cannot exist without free speech, and if the media promotes self-censorship out of fear, they will only destroy themselves.
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