It’s a fortunate thing that the new Charlie Hebdo cover image became known today at 4:30 p.m. ET, because that means the same deep-pocketed, overlawyered, American news organizations that have so spectacularly avoided reprinting allegedly “offensive” CH covers thus far will have plenty of time to wrestle with their starkest yes-or-no choice yet: Are you really going to opt out of showing the most newsworthy cover image of the year, one that carries a legitimately sweet (if sardonic) message, just because it portrays (a grieving and empathetic) Mohammed?
Unsurprisingly, The New York Times is out of the gate with a resounding “yes.” The Paper of Record is in the awkward position of having a (very good) article up titled “Charlie Hebdo’s New Issue Has Muhammad on the Cover,” absent a certain, shall we say, illustrative element. In contrast, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and the L.A. Times have shared with their readers (at least online) what the hullaballoo is about.
That last publication in particular is significant to me, since that’s where the current editor of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, was the man in charge during the 2006 Danish cartoon cartoon controversy. I worked there at the same time, for the Opinion section—which was not under Baquet’s domain—where I lost a strenuous argument about the necessity of reprinting one of the contested images, a story I recount at some length here. Perhaps the greatest insult I could give to Baquet (who I met once or twice; perfectly nice guy) is to say that it never really occurred to me that he would screw up the courage to print a simple, newsworthy cartoon.
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