Following a horrific attack on a Paris newspaper office against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo which has stunned the world, most major media outlets have censored their coverage to republish the French magazine’s satirical but highly controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Online news sources the Daily Beast and Slate published the cartoons, but leading US news outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and the Associated Press, mostly declined to show controversial cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad.
According to some, the guidelines call to stay away from publishing images or other material intended at offending religious sensibilities.
The New York Daily News fixed on to obscure the front page of a Charlie Hebdo publication in its coverage of the attack. It blurred a cartoon from a 2011 Getty photo of Charlie Hebdo.
The Telegraph took a similar approach and blurred the cover of a Charlie Hebdo paper in its live blog.
CNN has also preferred not to show any Charlie Hebdo cartoons that could offend Muslims.
Bill Marimow, editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, told Reuters: “We will not under any circumstances run the cartoons. The idea of gratuitously insulting tens of millions of Muslim people rather than describing something in words is not a close call.”
Representatives at Slate, Reuters and the Daily Beast did not at once return calls seeking comment. The Associated Press has a long-standing policy of abstaining from using provocative images, spokesman Paul Colford told Reuters.
Scores of Muslims believe that it is blasphemous to make pictures of the Prophet Mohammad and Jihadists online repeatedly warned that the magazine would pay for its derision.
(With inputs from Agencies)