[media-credit name=’YANA PASKOVA/Herald Photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]A wide range of panelists assembled Tuesday to discuss the wisdom and ethics of the decision to reprint a controversial cartoon in The Badger Herald last week.

The cartoon, which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, accompanied an 800-word editorial advocating the "sacred right" of freedom of speech.

The cartoon's original Sept. 2005 publication in a Danish newspaper continues to spur a heated reaction — sometimes violent — from Muslims worldwide.

"I believe a newspaper, when possible, should give people the information they need to conduct intelligent, well-informed debate," Mac VerStandig, editor in chief of The Badger Herald, said at Tuesday's forum.

While none in attendance questioned the Herald's right to print the cartoon, several panelists — including University of Wisconsin history professor emeritus Kemal Karpat — argued the newspaper abused that right.

"Here is the danger of freedom when it is in the hands of people who are not sufficiently understanding of the world in which they live," Karpat said. "Such freedoms can be abused when people have the means to utilize them to express their own personal preferences, likes and dislikes."

But VerStandig insisted the Editorial Board's decision to print the cartoon was based on its newsworthiness, rather than any religious or political statement the Herald itself wished to convey.
Specifically, he said, the decision came after University of Illinois Chancellor Richard Herman reprimanded the college newspaper there for reprinting six of the original Danish cartoons, bringing the issue from an international focus to a regional one.

"I believe in the libertarian principles that say that we gave you all the information, you can each draw your own intelligent conclusions about what's going on in the news, what's going on in Illinois and what's going on throughout the world," VerStandig said. "We printed this cartoon to help give you that information. We printed this cartoon because other people weren't."

Suri Kempe, the MultiCultural Student Coalition's representative on the panel, said the Herald made an editorial decision to endorse the anti-Islamic speech the cartoon represented.

Implied in the protection of freedom of speech, Kempe argued, is that the defender of speech — The Badger Herald, in this case — is protecting speech that it believes in.

"I mean, what is the point of publishing something just for the sake of publishing it?" Kempe said. "By reprinting this picture, The Badger Herald — as an institution — claims the right to clearly express that it believes … [that Muhammad] is a terrorist, and that by extension it's calling all Muslims terrorists."

VerStandig, however, continued to defend the ethics behind the newspaper's decision, referencing the accompanying editorial.

"The editorial we wrote alongside this cartoon … made absolutely clear that we think it is a repugnant and disgusting cartoon and that we don't endorse the ideology that comes with it," he said.
Following the formal panel discussion, VerStandig entertained questions from an audience largely critical of the newspaper's stance.

UW Chancellor John Wiley attended the discussion, and in his introduction to the event he promised all attendees would leave with memories and increased understanding the likes of which would not be encountered in any ordinary classroom experience.

"This is really in many ways what a university is all about," Wiley said. "This kind of debate about real issues that are on us at the moment — not things that are considered in a theoretical context in a classroom — things that are actually happening and affecting people's lives."