Cartoonist Lynn Johnston on Muslim Cartoon Violence

Universal Press Syndicate: News Release

Curiously, her stance seems to be that the press should practice self-censorship and that if it doesn’t do this properly it should be held responsible for any resulting reaction. Says Johnston:

I believe these cartoons have a right to exist. The media does not have the right to use them callously in the name of freedom. Freedom for whom? If one innocent person dies because of this capricious incident, publishers must accept the blame.

It’s kind of a nice arrangement, because it shifts any potential blame away from (a) cartoonists and (b) from the individuals actually doing violent acts.

So, if—theoretically, of course—someone were reading some lame newspaper cartoon which’s storylines were so “ABC Afterschool Special’-like and so saccharin as to be offensive to the sensibilities of any individual with taste… and he/she became enraged as a result, and were to violently attack all Canadians (let’s say this hypothetical cartoonist is from Canada) in retaliation, the entity that should—according to Johnston—be held responsible would be the newspaper and/or syndicate that published the strip in question?

Again, this is of course just a theoretical scenario, but it’s a curious result…