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New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial cartoons that have been used as a pretext for great and greatly menacing violence directed against journalists, cartoonists, humanitarian aid workers, diplomats and others who represent the basic values and obligations of Western civilization. Having been ordered at the 11th hour to pull the now-infamous Danish cartoons from an issue dedicated to them, the editorial group—consisting of myself, managing editor Tim Marchman, arts editor Jonathan Leaf and one-man city hall bureau Azi Paybarah, chose instead to resign our positions.

A free press is worth fighting for, and it's a national disgrace that, at a time when it actually matters, so few American newspapers have stepped forward to display solidarity with Jyllands-Posten and declare in loud, no-nonsense language that they won't be muzzled by savages without a godawful, history-making fight.

Elmer Davis, a once-prominent American newsman: "This will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."

USA Today: "In political cartoons as in other content, the newspaper seeks vibrant commentary on issues of public interest, including those with a religious component, but it avoids symbolism likely to be perceived as gratuitously offensive to readers' religious beliefs."

The sainted John Peter Zenger must be rolling over in his grave.

Bob Felton
www.CivilCommotion.com
The Intersection of Religion, Law, and Politics