Remember that “land of the free, home of the brave” stuff? Not so much anymore:
As newspaper Charlie Hebdo prints a record 7 million print run, editor-in-chief Gerard Biard is slamming U.S. media for refusing to show the cover of the latest issue, in an interview with NBC News.
“This cartoon is not just a little figure. It’s a symbol. It’s the symbol of freedom of speech, of freedom of religion, of democracy and secularism,” he told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on Sunday. “When they refuse to publish this cartoon, when they blur it out, when they decline to publish it, they blur out democracy.”
Why should anyone be surprised? Over the past half-century, the type of person who went into the media changed from streetwise ethnics without a lot of formal education but plenty of savvy into upper-class college kids who majored in a subject any halfwit (e.g., me) could learn in three months on the job. Politically correct do-gooders to a fault, they were also largely physical and moral cowards whose “bravery,” such as it was, consisted of taking bold stands in complete accordance with whatever their peers were doing. As I’ve pointed out before, today the MSM date each other, marry each other, live in the same neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Washington, go to the same schools, send their kids to the same schools and have their vacation homes in the same places.
Defend Charlie Hebdo? Well, sure, in principle… but…
Several American news organizations — including channels ABC, CNN, and NBC along with the Associated Press, The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter — have not shown what has been billed the “survivors’ issue” cover featuring a cartoon drawing of Islam’s Muhammad. CBS News, meanwhile, did show the cover image during broadcasting on multiple platforms.
“We do not kill anyone,” Biard said. “We must stop conflating the murderers and the victims. We must stop declaring that those who write and draw are provocateurs, that they are throwing gas on the fire. We must not place thinkers and artists in the same category as murders.”
“Every time that we draw a cartoon of Muhammad, every time that we draw a cartoon of the prophet, every time that we draw a cartoon of God, we defend the freedom of religion,” said Biard. “Religion should not be a political argument.”
Biard obviously does not summer on Martha’s Vineyard.
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