The NYT Ducks

TRIGGER WARNING:  Wherein I mention the Charlie Hebdo cartoons.
For John, BLUF:  It is hypocrites, all the way down.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Mr Jim Treacher, writing for the "DC TRAWLER" portion of The Daily Caller gives us "The NYT Doesn’t Publish Religiously Offensive Images, Except When They Offend Christians".

That is a pretty insulting headline.  Of course part of the problem is if we think Christians can actually be insulted.  On the one hand, they tend to not actually kill anyone when they are insulted, so maybe they aren't seriously insulted.  And they don't turn out in large numbers to demonstration, except in front of abortion clinics.  They are an easy mark.

But, here is the lede from the story:

The staff of a newspaper can run any images they want, or refuse to run any images they want.  They’re paid to make those decisions.  And when the rationalizations they give for their editorial judgments are a bunch of crap, we can point out that they’re a bunch of crap.

Back in January, here’s what New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told his public editor, Margaret Sullivan, about his decision not to publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons after their staff was slaughtered by Muslim terrorists:

He said he had spent “about half of my day” on the question, seeking out the views of senior editors and reaching out to reporters and editors in some of The Times’s international bureaus. They told him they would not feel endangered if The Times reproduced the images, he told me, but he remained concerned about staff safety.

“I sought out a lot of views, and I changed my mind twice,” he said. “It had to be my decision alone.”

Ultimately, he decided against it, he said, because he had to consider foremost the sensibilities of Times readers, especially its Muslim readers. To many of them, he said, depictions of the prophet Muhammad are sacrilegious; those that are meant to mock even more so. “We have a standard that is long held and that serves us well: that there is a line between gratuitous insult and satire. Most of these are gratuitous insult.”

“Gratuitous insult.” The NYT tries to avoid gratuitously insulting people of faith. They had an international news story about people being murdered for creating blasphemous art, and that art wasn’t shown because it was gratuitously insulting. Dean Baquet chose not to offend the sensibilities of religious people.

What triggered this column?  Another photo in The Old Gray Lady that was a gratuitous insult to Catholics.

There is a joke in here, but I am not sure what it is.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff