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The student paper at NIU has jumped into the controversy by running the cartoons this week. 
So has ISU.
And Harvard’s conservative alt-paper.
Only two major U.S. newspapers have done so: the Philadelphia Inquirer and the American-Statesman in Austin, Texas.
And the two editors apparently mainly responsible at the Daily Illini and U of I have been bounced from the paper. One of the editors has hired “Chicago-based Muslim-American civil rights attorney, Junaid Afeef[.]” because Afeef’s client was referred to as a “renegade editor" in a retraction editorial run by the other Daily Illini editors.
[Sidebar: are we using this hyphenation now? “Muslim-American”? We’re unfamiliar with Christian-American, Jewish-American, Jain-American, or any other hyphenation with a religion.]
The most cogent argument against running the cartoons we’ve heard so far is found in the Trib article:
"We discuss pornography in papers without showing images," said Ahmed M. Rehab, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago. "We discuss violent acts of war and terror without showing graphic images of maimed corpses. We discuss anti-Semitism without reprinting vile anti-Semitic depictions. So this editor's argument that we had to print the racist cartoons just to understand the situation really was paper-thin, and a lot of people saw straight through it."
Fair enough. And, as we’ve been covering here and here, reasonable people disagree on publication of the cartoons.
But who truly understood what went on at Abu Ghraib without seeing Lynndie England smiling and pointing? And pornography and images of gruesome violence are explicit and viscerally offensive across nearly all world cultures. And even then they are often published when circumstances warrant.
Here, for many non-Muslims, having seen the photos the reaction is often, “Is that all there is?” The fact that the cartoons seem almost benign to non-Muslim eyes but are clearly not so to so many others is the story. Can you really understand what the issue is without Exhibit A?
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DI response:
"DI alums,
Thank you for the concern you've expressed regarding the controversy surrounding The Daily Illini this week. We've received numerous calls and e-mails from alums, some registering serious reservations and complaints about company policies, and many including notes of personal support and encouragement for those of us here who are making difficult decisions. In all communications, your passion for the DI has been evident and an appreciated respite.
Please know that your passion is shared by all of us involved in this. Melinda Miller (DI editor in chief 1992-93; current editorial adviser) and I have kept the proud heritage of our independent paper, as well as a focus on our current students' experiences in the newsroom, at the forefront of our thinking as we wade through this mess.
We are confident that the Illini Media board members do not question the right of the editor in chief to have full editorial control of the paper; neither do they have any intention of arbitrating on matters involving competing personalities or viewpoints among students in the newsroom. The university administration has not interfered in this matter, and the community reaction to the cartoons has not been a factor in any of our decision making.
The problem we're addressing is the inability of the editor in chief to be honest with his staff and with me. His actions and statements over these past weeks (his tenure began Jan. 1) demonstrated a lack of respect for his colleagues and a total disregard for the need to collaborate or communicate honestly in the newsroom. His focus, as expressed directly to his staff and myself, is for the media attention he is receiving personally for his courageous move in being first (second/third?) to run the cartoons in his paper, not for the need to publish an excellent newspaper worthy of its reputation.
The night editor (shift position responsible for final page approval on deadline) who approved the Feb. 9 opinions page on Wednesday night recounts how the cartoons made it to press (full account available on his blog: thenextfrontier.net): "I was alerted by both the Editor in Chief and the Opinions Editor about the content that would be published for Thursday. I was told the very few people knew about it. I was told to keep it quiet and ensure that it got printed, and if complications arose, to contact them immediately."
The editor in chief intentionally kept knowledge of his plan to publish the cartoons from his executive team and editorial board, and had no plans in place to deal with any reader reactions once they were published. He was unable to involve his other editors in any type of response or coverage of the situation, because he purposefully kept them out of the communication loop on this issue. The chaos that has ensued here since then because of his reckless actions has been damaging to the paper's reputation and unworkable for the staff.
The newsroom editors requested a meeting to discuss the communication problems with the editor in chief and the opinions editor. The meeting was held Monday night in a lecture room in Greg Hall, in order to accommodate the expected large crowd (approx. 75+ attended); Melinda and I attended the meeting, at students' request, as observers only.
After observing the meeting and hearing the responses offered by the editor in chief, we decided a cooling off period was necessary, along with a task force of newsroom students charged with assessing the situation. During the next two weeks, we've put the editor in chief and the opinions page editor on suspension with pay. The board will act on what it considers to be a personnel issue, only after receiving the recommendations from this student task force.
This was an extremely difficult decision, one that we have not taken lightly. We felt that we were faced with two competing considerations: public perception of the DI (that the public will erroneously think the editors were suspended for running the cartoons) vs. providing a functional, healthy, ethical newsroom experience for our students. We chose the latter, and are now dealing with reaction to that decision.
Thank you again for your words and thoughts (and please understand if we are unable to respond individually in the coming days).
Sincerely,
Mary Cory"
You can find your "Exhibit A" by googling it. It's not that hard.
I think these editors (all journalism undergrads) are trying to generate hype and controversy by running the cartoons. It's a great way to draw attention to your crappy college paper.
Just because we have a freedom of the press, it doesn't mean we should use that right irresponsibly. I'm not advocating censorship, but I do think that the majority of editors who haven't run the cartoons have valid reasons. They don't want to unnecessarily incite more violence and offend devout Muslims. If folks really want to see the cartoons, just google them. It's not hard. After all, those cartoons are being distributed by the clerics trying to incite more outrage. They're up on their sites, easy to find.
In related free-speech news, the British government is debating whether to criminalize the 'glorification of terrorism.'
If we don't show it, will it just go away?
If we stop printing these cartoons, will the Muslims who demonstrated and torched embassies stop hating the West?
Are the decisions to show (or not show) the cartoons based on the same principles that we use for not showing the Abu Ghraib pics or even the flag draped caskets of soldiers? It's a slippery slope that's for sure. I don't know what the correct answer is. And this will be debated until the end of time.
What's the point of continuing to print them? What does that accomplish? If they have been in circulation since September of last year, what's the point of continuing to publish them? They're already readily available!
Also worth note is that both pornographic and violent images are readily available in other outlets -- magazines (obviously) for porn, medical and historical texts for gore. Somehow I doubt the cartoon's detractors would approve a correlating recurrent publication of the cartoons in a non-news venue.