Freedom of Press continued

Since this chain of blogs was inspired by the Danish cartoons let me add a bit more to the confusion by updating wassup-on-the-media front. Feb 14th, an Australian television network decided to release more images of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. And this set off another debate over the willingness of many media organizations to carry the gruesome pictures when they chose not to publish controversial cartoons depicting Mohammed. In explaining their decision not to reproduce the cartoons some media representatives argued that doing so would unnecessarily inflame an already tense situation. That connects so well with my last blog where I was talking about the Gujarat reporting, that I have to rant some more...

Here's my two bits on this: the difference between "not publishing cartoons" & not exposing things like Abu graib torture is that one is fiction and the second is not. Would life been any different if the cartoons had not been printed - NO, but a lot of ppl may have not been sensitized to what goes on behind the battle lines unless they had actually seen the pictures. Does it make sense to publish MORE pictures of the abuse, I have to accept I am not so sure about that.

But again, if I connect this back to the Gujarat riots, was there any sense then in making it clear that it was a MUSLIM who was being tortured? maybe yes? UGH I am so confused now. I think I'll give up this new hobby of "thinking" for a while....