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Editorial: Where do you draw the line?

Terrorism in France has people questioning where freedom of expression ends and obscenity begins.

IC Editorial Board

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Advocates of the principle of free expression are in a state of shock following a gruesome shooting last Wednesday at a Paris magazine called Charlie Hebdo, which led to two simultaneous stand-off hostage situations and a national crisis.

In response, the French military placed Paris under the highest military alert level last week. Right now in France’s capital there are over 8,000 soldiers and riot police standing guard in synagogues, kosher stores, other Jewish cultural centers, schools, mosques, monuments, important government buildings and media agencies.

Charlie Hebdo can be considered a French version of what we in the U.S. know as The Onion. It’s satirical news that doesn’t let anyone or anything off the hook. All kinds of people, beliefs, ideologies and political doctrines are fair game.

Last week, the magazine published a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad, which many Muslims found offensive. Many believe depictions of the primary prophet of God are sacrilegious, something that is not right for anyone on this planet to make. Unfortunately, a small handful of religious extremists took their offense to the extreme and invaded the Charlie Hebdo office, shooting 23 journalists and staff inside.

When they did this, one of the attackers said they had “avenged the prophet Muhammad.”

It is very important to point out that the murderers who violated one of our most cherished principles represent the very small minority of Al Qaeda extremists. We have published stories before which include interviews with students who practice Islam and who have said such extremists are not true Muslims and have actually done a very evil thing. Internet memes fill Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit expressing the same message.

This crisis brings up a very important question for journalists and media organizations in general — where do you draw the line between championing freedom of expression and saying “that’s too far”? This isn’t a new question. Newspapers and U.S. courts have made many (and sometimes contradictory) rulings before. There are many subjects that are banned in the U.S., including some obscenities, child pornography, language that incites lawlessness and false advertising.

The principle of free expression in this country does have some limitations. They are considered reasonable limitations, and the beautiful part is that the limitations can be changed, rewritten and removed with the same or higher level of deliberation that media agencies (including The Independent Collegian) use to decide whether it is acceptable to publish something.

With every editorial we publish, we ask ourselves if we are willing to stand up for what we write, if we are willing to put our personal reputations and the reputation of The Independent Collegian on the line and if we will be able to sleep knowing our flag prefaces our opinion. Sometimes the entire newsroom feels the same way, and that is beautiful. Sometimes the newsroom is divided, and our editorial represents the majority opinion, and that is also beautiful.

What is important is that we discuss what we write every single time, and that from time to time, our opinions change. Just because we decide one way doesn’t mean we will decide the same way in the future. It’s important that we take current events, the present cultural atmosphere and the viewpoints of our audience into consideration when we take a stance on some topic.

The Internet is talking about a hot-button issue right

now — whether publications and media agencies around the planet should reprint the controversial cartoons, whether in an act of defiance and championing of the principle of free expression or simply to show media consumers what the cartoons are that the murderers used as justification for killing 12 journalists and staff, wounding 11, and holding hostages around Paris.

We’re not publishing those cartoons. We must remember that the principle of free expression includes the right to not express anything at all. This is not censorship as some argue; we’re not telling anyone else what to do. We discussed this as an organization and chose not to print cartoons that our audience would very likely find offensive for the sole purpose of pointing out that they’re offensive. In a way, that is an expression in itself.

Of course, this leads to the question of how far our reservations should go. It’s unreasonable to expect to offend no one. This comes down again to a decision we have to make while taking public opinion into consideration. If there is a very large subset of people in our audience who would be offended by something, that holds a lot of water in our decision whether to finally publish it.

Maybe in the future this staff will decide to publish controversial materials that others use to justify extremist actions (though we want violent extremism to stop completely). The fact that we have this choice and that our opinions can change is central to the principle of free expression that some wish to regulate or even eradicate based on personally held beliefs.

Of all the things we’ve seen this week, the greatest act of defiance against those who would murder journalists is this: Charlie Hebdo published today. Just like they did last week, just like they will next week. In fact, their normal print runs are 60,000 copies each, but today they ran three million in 16 different languages.

While we disagree with the idea of publishing what they’re publishing (more cartoons depicting Muhammad), we stand behind the legal and ethical ability of Charlie Hebdo to make well-informed, deliberate decisions. They’re taking a stance, a very brave stance, that they should be able to say what they want without fear of (and especially in the face of) death.

We suppose the basic question comes down to this: are we as journalists willing to die for the belief that all people should be free to express themselves? That answer is not simple. Everyone will give you a different answer for different reasons, and that’s beautiful.

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