Bryan and I have been continuing this debate in other venues, such as Twitter.
He has emailed me the above short (58-second) video, with the comment:
I am in agreement with Chris Hayes for perhaps the first time ever. This is news in and of itself.
My response…
That’s a VERY good analogy, and here’s my reply: If you really didn’t like the segment, you shouldn’t run it. If you were on the fence about it, you should decide whether to run it based on its merits.
What the advertiser had to say should have NO bearing on your decision, period. To fail to run the segment BECAUSE of the advertiser’s threat would of course be wrong, and a betrayal of your audience. But to RUN it because of the threat, even if you thought it shouldn’t run, is a stupid, childish and irresponsible gesture that ALSO lets your audience down.
Your judgment about the quality of the segment and whether it properly, professionally serves your audience should be the only consideration.
To elaborate beyond what I told Bryan…
If the advertiser’s threat was public, you will pay a price in terms of your reputation if you decide honestly that the piece was not worth running. All the other kids in the playground will taunt you and say you were chicken, or worse.
And of course, that is more painful to the journalist’s pride than any other scenario.
But a mature and responsible professional will decide on the merits of the content, not on the basis of what may make him seem braver and tougher. You do the right thing, to the best of your ability to ascertain the right thing, and you take the consequences. If the content is worth running, you take the consequences of the advertiser’s ire. If the content doesn’t measure up, you accept the taunts from the crowd.
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I’ll give you a real-life scenario, from long ago when newspapers were relatively flush:
Back in the mid-80s, when I was working at the then-named Wichita Eagle-Beacon (the “Beacon” was later dropped, possibly because of the jokes about “Eagle’s Beak” and “Eager Beaver”) as news editor, when a situation arose in the business department (which I did not supervise).
Back in those days, a business section would actually have multiple pages that need filling. And one of the junior editors in that department grabbed a feature off the wire to use in filling one of those pages. It was a consumer-beware type of piece that gave advice on how not to get taken when you went to buy a car. It was full of tips on questionable dealer practices to look out for.
The piece had some attitude, and was entirely written from the caveat emptor perspective, without giving dealers any chance to protest their honesty.
As soon as our executive editor, Buzz Merritt, saw it, he groaned, because he saw it as unfair and irresponsible, and was pretty ticked at that desk editor who didn’t question it.
Well, the piece led to a HUGE negative response from local car dealers, who banded together to boycott the newspaper. It’s been so long that I’m not sure, but I think they went beyond threatening and DID pull their advertising for a time.
Anyway, Buzz made it known (in the paper, I believe) that he thought the piece was flawed and he was upset that the paper he supervised had run it.
The dealers were still unsatisfied, and showed their dissatisfaction for some time after. But while the loss of auto ads in those days would have been a huge blow to the paper financially, it would also have been very harmful to the dealers. They (and other advertisers) NEEDED the paper back then, which is why publishing a newspaper used to be so profitable.
So basically, if he had thought the piece WAS worth running, he could have ridden out the protest, assuming the publisher didn’t panic and have his head — which would have been doubtful.
But he didn’t think that, and he said so.
And boy, did he get pilloried for it, including being held up to ridicule in a national publication (I think maybe it was CJR) for supposedly “caving” to the advertisers.
No doubt, among the few who remember this, some still think Buzz DID cave to the advertisers. I don’t think he did; I believe he was being honest. And taking responsibility for something in the paper that he believed to be irresponsible.
That took more guts than telling the advertisers to bug off, because all journalists want the respect of their fellows…
And to bring it back to the Mohammed cartoons discussion…
The way “quality of the content” plays in is like this: The only question should be, Do I think it is right to publish (or hold a contest showcasing) such cartoons? And my answer would be no. And that answer remains unchanged when someone threatens to kill me for publishing them. The threat of violence doesn’t make a wrong thing right.
But you bring that threat of violence in, and people get all emotional, and their judgment gets clouded.
Not to continue to beat what is probably at this point a thoroughly dead horse, I’ll concede that I understand your point. However, I would say that you should take into account the fact that people are threatening violence for drawing cartoons into the equation. For me, once the bird-brain jihadists stop threatening violence, the point of drawing Mohammed goes away. I don’t see it as offending purely for the sake of offending. I see it as offending for the sake of preserving the right to not be intimidated by violence.
You put down your Kalashnikov, and I’ll put down my crayola. Until then, I’ve got a crayola, and I’m not afraid to use it.
I guess that’s where we’re diverging. I see a point to the cartooning, but you see it as purely offensive display with no redeeming value.
But see, the “You put down your Kalashnikov, and I’ll put down my crayola” proposition is never going to work. I mean, who’s your negotiating partner in this proposal? The terrorist? You think he’s going for that deal?
No, he wants to kill you, and in his own feeble brain, your cartoon gives him the excuse. But he would try to kill you, or someone, anyway.
So the cartoon doesn’t accomplish anything. It gives you no leverage in accomplishing anything. It just helps the terrorist choose his next target…
“No, he wants to kill you, and in his own feeble brain, your cartoon gives him the excuse. But he would try to kill you, or someone, anyway”.
Yeah, I suppose that’s true. So what’s the solution for dealing with these bird-brains who want to kill us all?
What do we do if these bird-brains start attacking gay-pride parades. I mean, the jihadist folks take a pretty dim view of the whole homosexuality thing. They toss people off rooftops for being gay. Kinda makes the whole “Not gonna cater your gay wedding” thing seem sorta…not so bad.
I seem to recall back when the Japanese were doing all sorts of bad things to people in the early 1940s. We dropped a few nukes on them, and they’ve been pretty chill ever since then.
Proposed: If we stop with the cartoons of Mohammed, can we drop a few tactical nukes? (In sing-song voice: All we are say-ing, is give nukes a chance…)
“So what’s the solution for dealing with these bird-brains who want to kill us all?”
Well, long-term, it’s working to shape a world that doesn’t produce terrorists. But that’s very, very long term, and is a campaign that must be waged on many fronts over the course of a generation or two.
In the meantime, while I wouldn’t use nukes, the solution is to interdict, capture and when necessary, kill them first. In the short term, the last of the three is about the only solution to stopping the guys who throw people off buildings. And as they are defeated in battle, it weakens them as a banner to flock to, and helps a bit, just a bit, with the long-term goal.
Your question sort of reminds me of Sonny’s to Michael: “Lemme ask you something, Professor, I mean — what about McCluskey? Huh? What do we do with this — cop here?”
And my answer is the same as Michael’s…
“And my answer is the same as Michael’s…”
/big smile
I knew I liked you all along.
Kind of like Stonewall Jackson’s answer to a similar question in a similar situation.
… just when everybody thought they had me figured out as the nice college kid in the Ivy League suit who didn’t want to offend the terrorists…
And then Robert E. Lee started laughing, walked over to Jackson and said,
It’s a form of blackmail. Are newspapers published for the readers or for the advertisers?
I once wrote a story that got major advertising pulled, plus the advertiser went on the radio to claim we were liars. When it was proved that my story was absolutely correct all along, the advertiser still yanked his ads. That’s a form of free speech too.
Well, Burl, you know it’s for the advertisers!
Yep. I would never want to be a publisher. You have to uphold the integrity of the paper (if you’re worth anything), but you also have to keep the money flowing in. You have a DUTY to the readers, not only to have a newsroom beyond reproach, but to keep the institution viable. If you don’t, the newspaper fails — as we’ve seen so dramatically demonstrated in recent years.
And the publisher’s problem is that so many of his customers are people who aren’t sophisticated enough to understand that editors have to make their decision without any regard to what the advertisers want. These advertisers only know one thing — I’m paying you all this money, and YOU are kicking me. The idea of a wall between news and advertising is not a concept they can grasp. Every other vendor they deal with bends over backward to please them, in order to keep their business. They don’t see why it would be different with a newspaper.
If you’re an editor, that’s not your problem. If you’re a publisher, it is. Which is why I wouldn’t want to be a publisher.
The editor has no control over advertising. The ad director has no control over news. The only person who can’t cop out, who is over BOTH, is the publisher. Sucky job…
It seems to me that this whole thing about drawing cartoons of Mohammad is not about freedom of speech. We’ve already established that freedom. If these cartoons were for the purpose of making a statement other than “we can do this whether it insults your religion or not” then I would consider them valid political cartoons that might be worth publishing. Otherwise their purpose is purely thoughtless, puerile provocation. Let me offer an analogy. There are a small number of folks who consider themselves Christian whom I consider potential terrorists. They would be outraged over cartoons of Jesus engaged in acts of bestiality. Most of my fellow Christians would not be happy about them either. A few of the more violent ones might threaten to kill me if I continued to publish such cartoons. I could continue to publish them, but the only good reason I can think of for doing so would be to make a political statement that I could not make as effectively any other way. To continue to publish such cartoons just because I have a right to not only antagonizes those few violent Christians, it also insults and alienates the millions of other Christians who aren’t about to physically threaten me. I think that there are other ways of dealing with the Isil-types. I don’t have to insult or alienate innocent Muslims to do it. So yes, people have a right to say what they will about any religion they please. They have the right to draw any religious figure they wish, engaged in whatever they wish. But that does not stack up as brave or patriotic in my book. It’s more like tasteless graffiti.
Yes! What Karen said…
Remember the artist who portrayed Christ immersed in urine? He certainly got death threats. But nobody shot him.
Andres Serrano
The religious analogies are too convenient and obvious to people of faith. What about some type of secular analogy? What if some provocative cretin decided he wanted to make fun of car lovers and decided to destroy a vintage Corvette in the parking lot of a classic car show? If the car destroyer was intending to make a point about car safety or greenhouse gas emissions then we would all agree this is a free speech event.
But what if the car killing was nothing more than an attempt to provoke anger and was not intended as any sort of political statement? Would that rise to the same level of indignation as the offensive Mohammad drawings? To an atheist car enthusiast it just might. But I think everyone attacking the Texas “art” event could easily see how this would not be an especially heinous act but simply something childish. And I doubt anyone would try to kill the guy over it. Take the religious aspect out of this discussion and all of a sudden the dynamics of the act change in the minds of people of faith.
bud,
It is theorized that religion is such a touchy subject to believers because they conflate God with themselves, so any insult/rejection (atheism) is personal. Ever notice how peoples’ version of God is a lot like they are. I doubt any non-theistic equivalent exists–maybe family?
That’s why I wear my WWDD bracelet.
I don’t know any car-worshippers.
Except for Cameron’s Dad. And anyone with priorities so out of whack doesn’t deserve such a fine automobile.