In the days after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, many American writers have given full-spirited defenses of free speech and the need to publish pieces even if certain groups would deem them offensive.
This mindset doesn’t seem to be shared by New York Times columnist David Brooks, who defended his paper’s decision not to publish Charlie Hebdo’s new cartoons on PBS’ NewsHour.
“I have changed my mind about this,” he said of the paper’s decision not to publish the images on the grounds that their news value was outweighed by the offense they would cause.
He explained that he initially thought that the cartoons needed to be shown because of their “news value” alone, but that the content of some of the images (a few of which he described as involving sodomy) “involve things that violate every standard of decency which we have.”
“My view is that our standards of what represents decent behavior and civic conversation are more important in this case,” Brooks said. “And if people want to see the cartoons, they can go online, they can go somewhere else.”
“And my basic attitude is that, when it comes to speech, is that we should almost, almost never invite somebody off campus, we should almost, almost never pass a law, but we should have certain social standards — what’s polite, what’s acceptable, what gets you respect, what doesn’t. And maintaining standards of just decency, we don’t curse on the air,” he continued.
He concluded by saying that the New York Times’ call was “the right one.”
To watch the clip, click below. The relevant conversation begins at about 10:30.
