22 November 2008
Backlash - behind the Danish cartoons controversy
8 May 2006
Commentary by Kate Druett: Te Waha Nui Online
Free speech or not, the response from the public and within the media to the Danish cartoons affair will set a precedent. Editors will be reminded of the fallout from these cartoons when making future decisions about what appears in their newspapers.
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The publication of the Danish cartoons created an avalanche of debate around the world, widening the divide between Muslim countries and the West.
The issue has left many deeply aggrieved but also many others questioning what they perceive to be a gross over-reaction.
It began in September 2005 when Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons lampooning Islam. The cartoons were submitted to the paper in a competition to combat self-censorship. It was initiated when no-one was willing to illustrate a book with any pictures of the Prophet because Muslims consider this blasphemous.
Five months later when the Islamic response to the cartoons was making world news, the media was posed with an ethical dilemma.
On the one hand the public had the right to be informed and seeing the cartoons assisted their comprehension of the issue. The media was concerned that threats of repercussions from the cartoons being published would overwhelm freedom of the press.
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On the other hand, was it socially responsible to reproduce cartoons that clearly were offensive to the Muslim population and could provoke unrest and violence?
Since the original publication, the cartoons have been printed in 95 publications across 40 countries.
Differences with Australia
Between neighbouring countries New Zealand and Australia, the problem was dealt with differently.
While both countries have similar press standards and views on free speech, issues such as the Cronulla riots and Australia’s anti-terrorism stance have inflamed race-relations in Australia.
Australian media has become more sensitive to choices of what is culturally suitable to print and what is not.
In New Zealand, three daily newspapers ran the cartoons – the Dominion Post, the Nelson Mail and The Press. Both TVNZ and TV3 news broadcast the cartoons to illustrate their reports.
Dominion Post editor Tim Pankhurst said he decided to run the cartoons to show readers what the issue was about.
“We accepted this may well be offensive, but ours is a secular society, people can’t debate this issue without seeing what the fuss is about.”
On February 4, the Dominion Post ran an editorial explaining the paper’s views and justifying the printing of the cartoons. The editorial said that not to publish because of fear of disturbing Muslim sensibilities would be to “give way in the face of bullying threats”.
‘Price of being informed’
It added that “being shocked can be part of the price for being informed”.
To Pankhurst, it was clearly an issue of freedom of the press: “The right to freedom of the press is a precious one that has to be defended.”
Pankhurst said there was no pressure to publish (or not) from the paper’s owners, the Australian Fairfax group. Rather, he alerted them that he was going to run the cartoons and they supported his decision.
However, he said he was contacted by the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Simon Murdoch, who suggested his actions would put New Zealand troops in Iraq, hostages and trade at risk.
Pankhurst knew there would be a backlash and there was some risk to him, the newspaper and even his family: “I did lose sleep over it.”
Ultimately though, he said it was a case of “publish and be damned.”
The New Zealand Herald was clear in its stance not to print the cartoons.
In the paper’s February 4 editorial it said to publish them would be to “give offence for no redeeming purpose”.
Causing offence
Assistant editor and head of news at The New Zealand Herald, Jeremy Rees said the cartoons were a strong attempt by a Danish newspaper to “push its position”, but he questions whether that was a good reason to print them in New Zealand.
To him, there was a strong element of the cartoons attempting to cause offence and there didn’t seem any “social merit” in printing them.
Rees said: “There’s freedom of the press to take the mickey, but if you’re going to do that it has to be for a reason.”
Throughout New Zealand the argument continued.
Prime Minister Helen Clark commented on Radio New Zealand that the publication of the cartoons was “gratuitous” and said the issue was not freedom of the press but one of taste and judgment.
Sunday Star-Times editor Cate Brett highlighted in an editorial that “causing offence is a routine hazard of publishing” and described the Dominion Post’s actions as “measured and contextualised”.
TVNZ and CanWest’s news chiefs spoke to the New Zealand Herald on February 6 and strongly supported the cartoons being published.
No TV complaints
Both channels broadcast the cartoons but no formal complaints were received by either, said TVNZ broadcasting standards manager David Edmunds.
In Australia, most of the major newspapers - including The Age, The Australian, the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph, the West Australian and the Canberra Times - chose not to run the cartoons. Each ran an editorial outlining their reasons for this.
Pankhurst said he discussed matters with Australian colleagues at The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. He believes fear was a large factor influencing their decision to print - they would have liked to have printed the cartoons but dare not.
In an editorial that ran on February 7, the Daily Telegraph said: “Publishing the cartoon is about as clever as a university prank. But the reaction it has invited is something else all together.”
The Australian editorial denied that its decision was because of any fear of retribution. Instead, it was because “the cartoons add nothing to the debate over the respect owed all religions in our predominantly secular society”.
The Herald Sun said the fact that the cartoons were “poorly drawn and unfunny” was sufficient reason to reject them. It also said that after seeing overseas reaction it was clear publication in Australia could have provoked “hotheads”.
The only papers to publish the Danish cartoons in Australia were The Brisbane Courier-Mail and The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin. Each ran one cartoon.
Right to know
While answering questions posed by Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s website Media Watch, editors of these papers said that the public’s right to know was fundamental to their decision to run the cartoons.
“The majority of our readers would want to be informed; far out-weighing the number that might be offended,” said Brisbane Courier Mail editor David Fagan.
Rockhampton Morning Bulletin editor Steve Etwell was conscious of not wanting to denigrate religion but believed it was a freedom of speech issue that could not be ducked.
“Cartoons do not throw rocks, intolerant fanatics do,” he said.
In an opinion piece in The Australian, Janet Albrechtsen pulled no punches.
“Defending the confronting, offensive and insulting stuff is what tests our commitment to freedom of speech; that commitment is looking rather threadbare in Australia,” she said.
However, in another editorial The Age described the cartoons as “neither insightful or effective, just stereotypical smears.” One of The Age’s news editors, Ken Merrigan, thought the matter was not straightforward.
Fundamentalist tide
“Knowing the response that was spreading across the world it felt that publishing them would have been inflammatory and gratuitous.
“But the idea of making a gesture in defence of free speech is very appealing to most journalists, and many of us are aware of a fundamentalist tide that is putting pressure on freedoms we have long accepted.”
Merrigan has no doubt that the Cronulla riots created a heightened sensitivity to race issues within the Australian media. This probably did influence the way most papers responded to the cartoons, he said.
Compared to New Zealand’s heated response to the publication of the cartoons, it appeared that there was milder and less debate in Australia. This may be due to media reluctance to compound racial tensions at the present time.
The ethics of the Danish cartoon situation are complex.
Free speech or not, the response from the public and within the media to the cartoons will set a precedent. Editors will be reminded of the fallout from these cartoons when making future decisions about what appears in their newspapers.
The New Zealand Press Council and EPMU ethics codes state that journalists shall not place unnecessary emphasis on religious beliefs or race. The Australian Journalists’ Association code says much the same.
However, it is the Australian Press Council Code of Ethics that defines the situation most succinctly: “The freedom of the press is the freedom of people to be informed.”
A newspaper can publish what it reasonably considers to be news “without fear or favour”, and has the right to comment fairly upon it.
But it adds: “Freedom of the press carries with it an equivalent responsibility to the public. Liberty does not mean licence.”
- Kate Druett is editor of Te Waha Nui and a Graduate Diploma of Journalism student at AUT University. This commentary was written as part of an ethics assignment in the Public Affairs Reporting course 2006.
- Jyllands-Posten newspaper at Wikipedia
- Muhammed cartoons controversy at Wikipedia
- Other Media Ethics articles
- Media Ethics Online magazine
