February 13, 2006 8:27 PM
Why the N-word isn't an appropriate comparison with the Danish cartoons
The Oregonian of Portland compares printing the N-word with the publishing of the Danish cartoons. It's a bad comparsion.
Therese Bottomly, managing editor for news, likened the newspaper's decision not to publish any of the cartoons to its avoidance of the "N" word, according to a column by the paper's public editor.
"The racial slur can be described without repeating it," she told Michael Arrieta-Walden.
Of course it's a faulty comparison. Everybody knows what the "N" word is. We can't tell whether a cartoon is offensive, inflammatory, provocative just by being told that a cartoon is controversial or by seeing a description in a story. The response to a cartoon is personal.
Rich Oppel, editor of the Austin American-Statesman, makes a great point in Arrieta-Walden's column.
"Oppel says rather than a comparison to the handling of the "N" word, he believes a general comparison might be made to the offensive Nazi propaganda cartoons of the 1930s. He would never publish those cartoons, many of which were anti-Semitic, on the opinion pages, but he could see publishing those in the context of reporting on world affairs."
The world would have been far better off if American newspapers had published the anti-Semitic material of the Nazis. We would have been more likely to understand the threat.
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