The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The above is a quote by Philippe Val, the editorial director of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, talking at a seminar organised by the World Association of Newspapers in Göteborg, Sweden, ahead of the upcoming World Newspaper Congress and World Editors Forum. Charlie Hebdo was the subject of a lawsuit by Muslim organisations in France last year. The general consensus of this round table gathering of journos seemed to be that the right to run articles, features, stories and cartoons which some might find offensive was pretty essential to the freedom of the press, although it doesn’t look like anyone was suggesting that the general aim was to set out to offend, more that any perceived offense was a side-effect of a story or cartoon the editors deemed important to air.

There was also discussion of how some countries used the entire Danish cartoons furore as a convenient stick to beat the critical press with. As Ali Amar of the Moroccan Le Journal Hebdomadaire commented: “The authorities did not hesitate to use this international scandal to silence the voice of an independent newspaper that criticised them.” The paper was the victim of demonstrations over the cartoons, allegedly organised by the government, despite never having actually republished the actual cartoons – but since when did logic and facts play any role in a good, angry demonstration? With people on one side outraged over perceived slights to their belief system and people on the other side sticking rigidly to the belief in freedom of the press this is just going to keep going on.