NY Times' Standards for Publishing

Guess what, NY Times does in fact have standards for publishing sensitive material after all, as Wretchard over at Belmont Club reminds us. After a painful and careful deliberation, they refused to publish the Danish cartoons lampooning Muhammed. Good for them. We were beginning to wonder if they would publish anything. Wretchard says:

New York Times editor Bill Keller said that he and his staff concluded after a "long and vigorous debate" that publishing the cartoon would be "perceived as a particularly deliberate insult" by Muslims. "Like any decision to withhold elements of a story, this was neither easy nor entirely satisfying, but it feels like the right thing to do."

Michael Barone's response:

The New York Times is, evidently, not afraid that the government or its supporters—not even rabid talk radio listeners or right-wing blog readers—would wreak violence on 229 W. 43rd Street. But aggrieved Muslims—more accurately, Muslims purporting to be aggrieved—might. It's nice that Keller feels a responsibility to protect his staff. It's too bad he doesn't feel a similar responsibility to protect his fellow citizens after they've had the effrontery to re-elect George W. Bush.