Associated Press Removes Photos Of ‘Provocative’ Charlie Hebdo Cartoon

Publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, Charb, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Police took up positions outside the Paris o... Publishing director of the satyric weekly Charlie Hebdo, Charb, displays the front page of the newspaper as he poses for photographers in Paris, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Police took up positions outside the Paris offices of the satirical French weekly that published crude caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad on Wednesday that ridicule the film and the furor surrounding it. The provocative weekly, Charlie Hebdo, was firebombed last year after it released a special edition that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad as a "guest editor" and took aim at radical Islam. (AP Photo/MIchel Euler) MORE LESS
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The Associated Press on Wednesday removed photos that included French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s Muhammed cartoons from its commercial photo system following the attack on the magazine, Buzzfeed News reported.

The photos that include the cartoons will remain on the wire service. The images of the cartoons on the AP wire service, including the one below, were taken by photographers with SIPA, a French Photo agency.

“None of the images distributed by AP showed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. It’s been our policy for years that we refrain from moving deliberately provocative images,” AP spokesman Paul Colford told Buzzfeed.

Other news outlets, including the New York Daily News and The Telegraph, have blurred out images of the cartoon in photos published on their websites Wednesday. TPM has also reprinted the images, but has kept them as they were originally published.

CNN also decided not to show the cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, according to a memo obtained by Politico.

“Although we are not at this time showing the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the Prophet considered offensive by many Muslims, platforms are encouraged to verbally describe the cartoons in detail. This is key to understanding the nature of the attack on the magazine and the tension between free expression and respect for religion,” CNN senior editorial director Richard Griffiths said in the memo.

CNN’s “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter on Wednesday shared a statement from CNN noting that the network is still figuring out the best way to cover the cartoons.

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