Charlie Hebdo: How Journalism Needs to Respond to This Unconscionable attack

The attack on Charlie Hebdo is the worst case of targeted killings of journalists ever recorded in Europe and is matched only by the massacre five years ago of 32 journalists and other media workers, by 100 armed men who attacked an election convoy in Mindanao in the Philippines.

But the Paris event is not an isolated incident of political barbarism. It is part of a continuing ideological struggle that began almost ten years ago when the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, sparking a global debate over the balancing of religious sensitivities and the right to free expression.

Among the victims at Charlie Hebdo are, cruelly and tragically, the most talented of the magazine’s cartoonists, the men whose work has helped make this satirical title an iconic symbol of dissidence with its impertinent disregard for the social conventions of the French political elite. But poking fun at western politics, where free speech includes the right to be offensive, even insulting, is far less dangerous than challenging the authority of ideology based upon fanatical attachment to religious dogma.

When the Mohammed cartoons crisis broke out in January 2006 (they were first published in Denmark in September 2005), western media were divided on how to respond. Some republished the cartoons, to show solidarity in the face of a backlash involving Muslim extremists against Danish journalists. Some editors felt to do so would be insensitive to Muslim readers—but many more succumbed to self-censorship, amid widespread threats of violence.

Uncompromising

Charlie Hebdo is a voice of uncompromising opposition to censorship in any form. It had already had a taste of what that can mean when dealing with religious extremists. In 2011 its offices were firebombed after it announced its intention to have a special issue with the Prophet Mohammed as guest ‘editor-in-chief’.

Thankfully no one was killed. But the warning was clear. Many at the time were nervous about the stance being taken. Wasn’t the magazine being unnecessarily provocative? There were fears that it was attention-seeking rather than promoting a debate about the need for free speech.

All of that is put into a fresh perspective by this latest attack. The slaughter of journalists in their own newsroom is unconscionable and intolerable and can never be excused.

The attack also highlights just how vulnerable journalists and other media staff can be when they actively defend free speech against corruption and violent extremism in all its forms. In 2014 many journalists were targeted and killed—according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 61 died; according to Reports Without Borders, the toll is 66. Even if the detail is unclear, journalism remains a high-risk business, with reporters and editors routinely threatened and subject to violence for exposing crime, corruption and political malpractice.

Hate speech

This appalling event on the streets of Paris will inevitably spark a new debate about free speech and religious intolerance and we can expect more hate-speech—particularly from the right of European politics—aiming to make political capital out of understandable public anger and outrage. But journalists must know better than to give voice to fresh acts of hatred and particularly Islamophobia. The story of the Paris atrocity and its origins as it unfolds over the coming days needs to be handled with sensitivity and care, and journalists must do everything they can to lower the temperature and avoid providing cover for abusive treatment or acts of discrimination against members of Muslim communities.

The magazine editor, 'Charb', was among the dead. Demotix / infosart. All rights reserved

This is a time for ‘slow’ journalism, when everyone in media—and even those would-be journalists outside the newsroom—needs to think carefully about the consequences of what they write and the images they show. Within minutes of the Paris shootings, a video was being circulated online showing the point-blank execution of a police officer. It should never have been shown and never shared.

The colleagues who died at Charlie Hebdo were not champions of violence or hatred. Indeed, the magazine has always used its creative power in words and images to show that politics can and should be fought on a level platform, in which respect for pluralism means that all opinions—even those with which one strongly disagrees—have the right to be heard. And no one, least of all those who trade in murder and inhumanity, has a right to say otherwise.