Editorial: Cartoons That Kill

A global crisis has quietly escalated during the past five months that is not about oil, territory, or governments interfering with the freedom of a nation's people. Believe it or not, the fight is over cartoons.

With all the conflict going on in the Middle East, the notion of a war over something like cartoons seems ridiculous. However, these images are far from ordinary. In September 2005, a newspaper in Denmark published several cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. The depiction of Muhammad is prohibited by Muslim belief, so Muslim ambassadors complained to the Danish Prime Minister shortly after the cartoons were published. However, in January the cartoons ran again - this time in a Norwegian publication. After that, gunmen raided the European Union's office in Gaza demanding an apology. The Muslim ambassadors finally received their apology from the Danish paper, only to watch the cartoons be printed a third time in several other European newspapers. What followed is a clash that has involved not only attacks on Danish and Norwegian embassies, but also an explosion of protests across the Middle East that has resulted in numerous deaths.

The situation does not end there. CNN reported Tuesday that an Iranian newspaper will hold a contest for Holocaust cartoons. The publication's owners are heavily influenced by the Iranian president and his opposition to Israel. The newspaper said that its intention is to test whether the West applies freedom of expression principles to crimes such as the Holocaust, or just to "insulting religious sanctities."

Freedom of speech and of the press are privileges that must go hand-in-hand with respect. Respect for religious beliefs and painful history, it seems, has gone out the window. The duty of those working in the field of journalism is to present the truth, but to do so with sensitivity toward the impact it will have on the audience. Cartoons are by no means news articles, but images sometimes carry a stronger message than words. Before going to press, newspapers must consider the impact of what they print. By running the cartoons, we would assume that each of the publications thought about the effects the images would have. They may not have been intentional in their support of the insult to the Muslim religion that came across in the cartoon, but that is how it appears to the public. The creators of the Iranian newspaper's Holocaust cartoon contest are using the press, which should be an opinion-free news source, for their own political experiment. This is crossing the line. It can give people around the world the impression that the news industry no longer holds itself to a standard of quality in presenting the facts.

We all know that there is a place for opinion within publications (that is how The Weather Vane works) as do a variety of other U.S. news publications. Though the first and most important task of journalism is to present unbiased news, the second job can be to provide a forum for open dialogue. We need to remember that respect, high-quality press, and performing one's primary function all fall inside boundaries that should not be crossed. That standard is made weaker when people act outside of these boundaries. Publishing insulting religious cartoons and holding a contest for Holocaust cartoons breaks the boundaries of the press and in turn has created a conflict that shows no sign of stopping.