The New York Daily News and other news organizations that pixilated the covers of copies of Charlie Hebdo showing cartoons of Muhammad dishonored the
journalists killed Wednesday in Paris, says commentator Mark Steyn.
Charlie Hebdo was one of a small number of publications around the world that printed the Danish cartoons that sparked controversy in 2005, but Steyn, appearing Wednesday on
Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File," said more should have done so. That, he said, would have spread the risk.
Instead, the few who took the risk had to shoulder the burden alone, he said.
"They pixilated Muhammad out of it so it looks like Muhammad is in the Witness Protection Program," Steyn said.
The pixilation drew this reaction from one Twitter user:
CNN showed the same photos of people holding the newspapers, but cropped the covers out. CNN did show a Charlie Hebdo cover mocking the Pope.
Steyn said he fears that rather than being emboldened to take a stand, more media outlets will begin engaging in self-censorship after the killings in Paris over publication of Muhammad cartoons.
He acknowledged that some people may have found the cartoons offensive, unfunny or poorly drawn, and would have been within their rights to reject them had they been offered for publication by the cartoonists. But now they are a legitimate news story and should be shown because they have news value, Steyn said.
"They won't even show you them after people have been killed for them," he said.
Steyn was no less unhappy with the U.S. government.
"John Kerry today said that this was a battle between civilization and, pregnant pause, the forces that are opposed to civilization," he said.
Steyn also quoted President Barack Obama's United Nations speech after the Benghazi, Libya, attack, in which he said, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."
Obama, Steyn said, "talked the talk. These savage murdering fanatics in Paris today walked the walk. So, words matter."
Former CBS News contributor Bernard Goldberg also appeared on "The Kelly File," saying that every major news organization should "run 'em all, and tell 'em all to go to hell."
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