Daily Alert Archives

When Fear Cows the Media

(Boston Globe) Jeff Jacoby - The Phoenix, Boston's leading ''alternative" newspaper, isn't publishing the Mohammed drawings, and in a brutally candid editorial it explained why. ''Our primary reason," the editors confessed, is ''fear of retaliation from...bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do....Simply stated, we are being terrorized, and...could not in good conscience place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy. As we feel forced, literally, to bend to maniacal pressure, this may be the darkest moment in our 40-year-publishing history." The vast majority of U.S. media outlets have shied away from reproducing the drawings, but to my knowledge only the Phoenix has been honest enough to admit that it is capitulating to fear. Give the rampagers and book-burners a veto over artistic and editorial decisions, and you end up not with heightened sensitivity and cultural respect, but with more rampages and more books burned. You betray ideals that generations of Americans have died to defend. And worse than that: You betray as well the dissidents and reformers within the Islamic world. What they want to see from America is not appeasement and apologies and a dread of giving offense. They want to see us face down the fanatics, be unintimidated by bullies. They want to know that in the global struggle against Islamist extremism, we won't let them down.
2006-02-21 00:00:00
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