The New York Times public editor on Wednesday said she disagreed with the paper’s decision not to publish an image of Charlie Hebdo’s new cover, which features a Muhammed cartoon.
Margaret Sullivan said she respected the Times policy of not publishing the controversial Muhammed cartoons, but in this case she felt the news value of the cover outweighed the potential for offending readers.
“The cartoon itself, while it may disturb the sensibilities of a small percentage of Times readers, is neither shocking nor gratuitously offensive. And it has, undoubtedly, significant news value,” she wrote.
Sullivan did indicate that the Times was right not to publish all of the Muhammed cartoons.
“I can understand why The Times would not have published ‘the most incendiary images,’ as the executive editor, Dean Baquet, described them last week. He felt those extreme cartoons would not have been necessary to illustrate the story about the terrorist attack that killed eight members of the satirical newspaper’s staff,” she wrote. “I certainly don’t think that decision was ‘cowardly,’ as many have charged.”
The first edition since the attack on Charlie Hebdo’s Paris headquarters was published on Wednesday. The cover featured a cartoon of Muhammed crying and holding a sign that reads, “Je suis Charlie.”
Multiple news outlets, including CNN and the Associated Press, have refrained from publishing Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammed cartoons.
