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| © Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune |
Pandora's Pen
Amazingly, the twelve (12) editorial cartoons that were printed in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten on September 30,2005, were commissioned to depict the difficulty of finding a children's illustrator for a book on Mohammad. The question of whether the editor could have known that such a subject would create a wave of violence may have crossed your mind, but the fact that just trying to find a cartoonist elicited death threats is probably an indicator that he did.
Questions to Ponder
Is it impossible for political cartoonists to self-censor themselves because of the nature of their business?
Should newspapers around the world have refrained from reprinting the cartoons as soon as violence broke out over their content?
If the newspaper industry allowed the censorship of these cartoons, what would happen the next time a religious group objected to the subject of a cartoon?
When cartoonists illustrate a cartoon on religion, should they be required to educated enough on the religion to avoid content that would be considered blasphemous? Is this even feasible?
What are (or should be) the ethical rules of cartooning?
ClassBrain Learning Links
The Ethics of Cartooning
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