According to the Globe and Mail in Toronto, 1 out of 3 Canadian journalists have not even seen the Danish cartoons which are still “causing” Islamofascists to riot, burn and kill. Of those who have seen the cartoons, 65% saw them on the Internet.
…while 16 per cent saw then [sic] in a magazine or newspaper. Another 10 per cent viewed the drawings as a result of an e-mail from a friend and 8 per cent saw them on television.
The survey is based on a random sample of 221 journalists who were interviewed between Feb. 16 and 18. In the general population a sample of that size would be considered accurate within about 7 percentage points 19 times out of 20. In the case of smaller populations – such as journalists – the margin of error would be smaller.
This is astounding. Basically, if it weren’t for bloggers, 45% of all Canadian journalists wouldn’t know what the rioting, burning and killing is about. I have not heard a better example of why refusing to publish these cartoons is an abandonment of the responsibilities of a free press.
It is even more amazing that 3 out of 10 Canadian journalists don’t even care. These are supposedly highly motivated news-junkies who all have high-speed Internet access, if not necessarily any friends to email them. One sincerely hopes none of them have had the temerity to express an opinion publicly – even in conversation with a friend, and much less in a newspaper.
The survey also showed that a majority of Canadian journalists thought at least some of the cartoons should have been published in the Canadian press. Why, then, were they not? And where is their spirited defense of those who did publish?
A similar survey of US journalists would be interesting.