Opinion
Herald fails to adequately justify publication of controversial cartoon
Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.
Also by Paul Temple:
- Stop genocide in Darfur (April 28, 2005)
- America turns blind eye to Darfur (December 5, 2005)
- Examining The Badger Herald from outside (January 26, 2006)
- Newspapers must take extreme care in dealing with victim identity (February 2, 2006)
- Editorial on Covenant plan inadequately researched (February 9, 2006)
Sharing tools:
E-mail this article:
In the interest of improving The Badger Herald as a source of quality journalism, the position of ombudsman was established last semester to act as a kind of public editor — an editor whose role is both critic of the publication and advocate for the reader.
In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, including one that shows him wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb with a lit fuse. Islam forbids depictions of the prophet.
After enduring four months of criticism, the newspaper issued an apology on Jan. 30. But violence, as well as peaceful protests, erupted. Global trade has been impacted by boycotts. Ambassadors have been recalled. The UN even appointed racism experts to carry out an investigation.
It seems the American press began to take serious notice of the controversy in late December. By early January, the International Herald Tribune, which is owned by the New York Times and affiliated with several other newspapers worldwide, began consistently running stories covering the issue, along with publications like the Washington Post and the Times itself.
Monday, the Herald republished one of the cartoons in an Editorial Board piece entitled, "Sacred images, sacred rights." Members justified their decision, writing, "We print this as a symbol of our continued dedication to free speech and as a means of better informing the debate that has been sparked." They also wrote that the cartoons are, "newsworthy and the key to helping many form intelligent opinions about the international riots and ever-increasing destabilization of a volatile region."
Tuesday, Chancellor Wiley issued a statement that, thankfully, did not admonish the Herald or attempt to punish it in any way for the decision. Rather, he wrote, "It should never be routine to recall that this university has for more than 100 years championed the cause of free and open debate, the 'fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.'" This is a departure from the practices of other administrators at other universities who have seen fit to reprimand their student newspapers for reprinting one of the cartoons. Students should be thankful that their Chancellor believes wholeheartedly in the right to free speech.
But the Chancellor was also careful to note that the Board, "has explained its decision and must answer to its readership, ultimately, regarding how it chose to balance information and community impact."
In my time at the UW, I learned from a great professor that with every sacred right comes a sacred responsibility. And whereas the Herald certainly has a right to republish the cartoon, it has an important responsibility to provide timely, newsworthy information to its readers. In this context, the Badger Herald Editorial Board has made a poorly-reasoned decision that is both shoddy and cowardly. As the ombudsman of this paper, I believe the Board has attempted to be controversial for controversy's sake — a kind of yellow journalism that has no place on this campus.
Let me be clear: The Herald has a right to publish the cartoon. But key questions of quality journalism must also be taken into account whenever publishing content: Why is the Herald reporting the story? Is the story fair? Have the authors attempted to report all angles? Who will be affected by the story? Can the Herald defend its decision to report the story? Are accompanying graphics and/or pictures necessary to an understanding of the story? Is the story being published in a timely fashion?
It is in this qualitative sense that the Herald failed — badly. The cartoons were old news by the time the Board republished one of them. As noted above, they were originally published in September, debated in the European press for months, and reached our shores' headlines in late December and early January. It is now mid-February — at least one month later. That the Herald did not provide the cartoons in its news content prior to this date indicates a debatable subject: In December and January, when this was a topic first making news headlines throughout the U.S., a decision to print one of the cartoons in order to bring context to the situation may have been appropriate. It would have answered the question for many students, "What exactly are these cartoons that have set off such a firestorm?"
But to do so weeks later, on the opinion page, with little or no accompanying news stories, after nearly every other news outlet covered it, is simply poor journalism. If this cartoon was truly relevant and necessary for readers' understanding of the issue, why was it not published long ago — and on a news page, where such information belongs? Was it because of a fear by news editors that it would offend some? If so, Editor in Chief Mac Verstandig would have been well within his right to override his news editors and publish the cartoon in a news article. Or was it because the Board members wanted to do something controversial simply because it could — a way to gain attention for attention's sake while self-congratulating themselves for exercising their right to free speech? I'm inclined to believe that readers are, unfortunately, dealing with the latter circumstance.
If the Board wanted to write a hard-hitting piece defending free speech in the context of the Danish cartoon debate, it could have done so just as well, or even better, without including the cartoon. That it chose to publish the cartoon and devote nearly all of the accompanying editorial to defending its right do so shows misplaced judgment. By neglecting to offer sufficient reason for republishing the cartoon on grounds of newsworthiness, the Badger Herald failed to exercise precisely what is its right (and responsibility) to do: provide important, timely information to readers.
Republishing the cartoon for the sake of being controversial is nothing but a race to the bottom. While I will defend the right of the Herald to publish the cartoon, and might even have advocated doing so in a timely news piece, Monday's editorial is totally misguided. The Herald should not have printed the cartoon in that context.
Paul Temple (ptemple@badgerherald.com) is the former editorial page editor of The Badger Herald. He is a 2004 graduate of the UW and lives in Madison.
19 Comments | Leave a comment
Leave a comment
Herald Blogs
The Beat Goes On
Muckrakers
President’s Visit Marked a Speech to One of the Last Groups Not Critical of Him
Extra Points
Top Classified Ads (view all)
HOUSES FOR Fall 2010. All houses are on W Dayton or N Bassett. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 bedrooms. All have parking. madisoncampusrentals.com
Paul Temple is right. You guys were just trying to get fingers pointed at you. Woo-hoo, we're celebrating free speech! All you really celebrated was your freedom to be asses. You're about as relevant and heroic as Jerry Springer.
Why don't you get off your butts and go out into your community and find some actual news? You might even makle the world a slightly better place to be.
Very nicely done. Thank you for pointing out that free speech is the right to say what needs to be said, not the right to say whatever might up your readership for a few days by offending and inciting people.
first worthwhile ombudsman piece ever.
What would rocky do?
Paul is right on track. Free speech, as the great American jurist Felix Frankfurter said, does not include the right to scream 'fire' in a crowded movie theatre. And that's just what the European newspapers did. They were trying to boost circulation and pander to anti-immigrant right-wingers by attacking Islam. And that is exactly what Badger Herald did.
I hope an apology from BH is forthcoming.
Thank you.
I was never really sure what Temple's use was untill today. Way to keep everything in perspective and in check.
Great piece.
Thank you. I hope if the editorial board desires to publish offensive and distasteful material of this caliber again, they contact the groups they may offend and talk about it before hand so as to avoid what happened in this situation.
"whatever might up your readership for a few days by offending and inciting people"
Well, I guess eliminating all that that would pretty much close the doors of all the MSM newspapers.
Want to bet that only those groups prone to riot will allowed to exercise prior restraint?
Yes, wonderful response. Always contact the people you talk about to make sure you don't offend them. Why not just have a group of people editing out all content from everything...oh wait that sounds a little to much like Communism.
Printing these cartoons was obviously a humungous deal. It wasn't like printing a story about an alternative social security plan. The Herald knew this. They knew that the cartoons were incredibly offensive, they knew that they were going to provoke negative sentiments, and they knew they were going to get a attention by doing so. I was saying that if they wanted to give the green light to something so controversial, perhaps they should have showed some sensitivity and given it a little more research and thought.
"Islam forbids depictions of the prophet."
I don't give a rat's hairy arse what Islam forbids. What Islam forbids is the exclusive concern of those who have submitted to Islam, and if they choose not to depict their prophet that is certainly their choice. When they claim a right to murder those that do, then I must object.
I keep hearing that Islam is a "religion of peace" but the reaction to some mildly sarcastic cartoons seems much greater that against all the violence and murder done in the name of Islam, even that occuring between Moslem sects bombing each other's mosques during services.
Tell me, did you object to Jesus on the cross being submerged in piss? Does Islamic violence make the difference? Are you scared? Don't want to end up like Van Gogh?
Yeah, I thought so.
"...perhaps they should have showed some sensitivity and given it a little more research and thought."
Or at least planned to get out of town fast. I sure hope nobody sticks a knife in anyone over this.
Paul, at some point it became a news story that with the exception of the Rocky Mtn News and a Pittsburg paper that no US paper was willing to publish the cartoons.
That is what is so interesting as 3 or 4 college papers printed the cartoons that the main stream press will not print. But pictures of Americans behaving badly at Abu Grhab the American press can't wait to get those in bold color. The cartoons point out the problem with Islamo-fascists, the photo's at Abu Ghrab let the left blame the U.S. for the behaviour of radical islam. So which can I see on the nightly news? The, "If only the U.S. would go away crowd the world would be a safer, happier place."
Thanks, but without that basic understanding of the world you live in your rebuttal is groundless.
Well said, Paul. Seems like the board got in a bit over its head with this one.
Paul Temple says free speech rights entail an obligation to avoid deeply offending one's readers. Fine. I am not simply being rhetorical when I say I am deeply and profoundly offended by this idea of Paul Temple's. Will my very real sense of offense limit him in expressing his views as he does here? Not a chance (nor should it). So we are not talking about just any reader or just any offense, are we? Some offenses are privileged, apparently. If, for example, people who are avowedly intent on destroying our society totally take offense at a satirical depiction of what they hold dear, those offended people take precedence over me and my sense of offense. I find this to be the deepest and most profound offense of all. Also, on this point, let's be clear. Moderate Muslims are not the instigators of the riots and murders that have, apparently, convinced Adam Sitte these silly cartoons were "incredibly offensive" as opposed to simply silly. It is the radical killers fomenting these riots who have convinced him of that. Hence, I conclude, that to win the sympathetic protections he and Paul Temple offer here, it helps to be a murderous hater of the West. Nice.
This is very well said and put. It argues for what I have come to believe about the editors of the BH. They are a number of children craving attention. Unfortunately for their readers and for the UW, they edit one of the two student papers. Using this privileged position, they have found means of satisfying such craving. The saddest thing about this story is that apparently they got what they were looking for and more - what with FOX news interviews and all - and they are relishing it.