When fear cows the media

[travelinman]

When fear cows the media
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | February 19, 2006

THE PHOENIX is Boston's leading ''alternative" newspaper, the kind of brash, pull-no-punches weekly that might have been expected to print without hesitation the Mohammed cartoons that Islamists have been using to incite rage and riots across the Muslim world. Its willingness to push the envelope was memorably demonstrated in 2002, when it broke with most media to publish a grisly photograph of Daniel Pearl's severed head, and supplied a link on its website to the sickening video of the Wall Street Journal reporter's beheading.

''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."

source

[LanDroid]

Jeff Jacoby is the most well known columnist at The Boston Globe. Why doesn't he get that paper to print them, or resign in protest?

How about all American super-patriots put up web sites hosting these cartoons, and include their physical home address and telephone number?

[Piña]

I was also amused that Jacoby didn't have the cajones to publish the cartoons himself as part of his editorial while taking everyone else to task for it.

At least the Phoenix editors provided a link to them. Their entire editorial, which is where Jacoby lifted his basically unattributed quote, can be found at http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid3588.aspx which includes a lot of interesting commentary, including two other reasons why they chose not to publish the cartoons themselves.

[cincygreg]

This may be totally out of context, but...

Doe cows ever fear the media? [img]graemlins/hmmm.gif[/img]

And does the media ever fear cows? :sure [img]graemlins/wonder.gif[/img]