I’m basically with JPod, but I’d go further. The newspapers are claiming they won’t run these cartoons out of sensitivity etc. But that argument only works — or only works well — when the discussion is about running them as editorial cartoons. They aren’t cartoons anymore, they are news. The debate keeps focusing on whether newspapers should run them based upon some sort of lofty “editorial” judgment — i.e. coming out in favor of freedom of speech or in solidarity with the Danes. That’s an argument, but a fairly irrelevant one.

The better way to look at this is by asking a basic question: where the heck are the news editors? When Neo-Nazis desecrate synagogues or black churches, newspapers and networks show the images even though they are just as easily described with words. Why? Because of their news value. Surely, the swastika drawn on a Jewish grave is “offensive.” The Abu Ghraib photos were offensive, the Rodney King photos were offensive, lots of photos are offensive. But sometimes they provide context. And, sometimes editors proudly run them because they are offensive. That was surely why the Rodney King video played ten trillion times. The Abu Ghraib images were broadcast constantly partly on the grounds that people needed to be “shocked.”

Now, in the case of these cartoons, there’s news value in showing people how decidedly un-shocking they are. That’s important context and the news and photo editors are simply abdicating their responsibilities.