Muhammad cartoons: Publish or not?

The big international story last week was the rioting in the Arab world over newspaper depictions of Muhammad that Muslims considered blasphemous. The N&O published stories about the protests, several readers noted. So what about the cartoons?

The News & Observer, like most newspapers in this country, has chosen not to publish them so far. "There are times when we publish material that offends people, but there have to be sound, compelling journalistic reasons for doing that," said Executive Editor Melanie Sill. To this point, she said, there has not been such a compelling news reason to reprint the cartoons in this newspaper. The N&O stories have described the content of the drawings.

In this country, a handful of papers -- the Austin American-Statesman, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Sun -- and a few broadcast and cable TV outlets reprinted one or more of the cartoons that were originally published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last year. Their reasoning was that a newspaper's obligation to report the news trumps concerns about offending readers or inciting violence. "It is one thing to respect other people's faiths and religion, but it goes beyond where I would go to accept their taboos in the context of our freedoms and our society," Austin editor Rich Oppel told USA Today (which did not publish the cartoons.)

The N&O heard from a few readers agitating to see the offending drawings in their hometown paper. Were these people representative of a larger demand among our readers? To get a sense, I put out a query to The N&O's Reader Advisory Board, a group of about 280 readers whom we survey by e-mail from time to time. (Contact me by e-mail if you'd like to join up).

Of the 154 readers who responded, two thirds (102 people) said don't print the cartoons. Thirty percent (46) said we should publish, and six readers weren't sure. Some frequent comments: the cartoons are readily available on the Internet, the right to publish includes a responsibility to not publish when appropriate, and -- on the pro side -- we shouldn't be intimidated by religious extremists. Here are some of the readers' specific responses to the question: Should the N&O reprint the cartoons?

No: "I think your paper does a pretty good job differentiating the news from the sensational. I would recommend that you do so here as well. As a parallel, what would the paper publish if a Muslim newspaper published a series of cartoons depicting a Jesus figure perhaps in a series of sexual unions or something equally offensive to the Christian community? I think it most likely that the paper might report the news; I sincerely expect it would withhold the art." Chris Speh, Durham.

Yes: "The public needs to know what the heck the big deal is about. I would look to our two 'flagship' universities to provide yin/yang columns about the pictures....Then I would try to locate one or two Muslim-Americans for their view on the subject." Mike Dodson, Cary.

No: "I'd recommend against printing the actual cartoons for the sake of sane and reasoned public discourse. We have radio talk show personalities, among others, being rude enough for the rest of us. Call this politically correct if you like: I call it being polite. As for the paper's responsibility to inform the public, the description will do it." Treadwell Davison, Oxford.

No: "It isn't a matter of not wanting to offend people -- I could care less about that. What is more important is to be respectful toward the religion of others, especially if that religion is a nonviolent one, and Islam is not a terrorist religion except to those who pervert it." Steve Clark, Goldsboro