Should Media Outlets Show Satirical Content
BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. This attack on the satirical magazine, "Charlie Hebdo," is being described as an attack on free speech. But in democracies, should there ever be a limit on what you can say and what you cannot? Days ago, we were having a debate over the movie "The Interview." It depicted the assassination of Kim Jong-Un. And even before hackers attacked the studio, Sony Pictures, critics said the film went too far. And the Obama administration was criticizing the French magazine a couple years ago for being too insensitive. CNN, along with other major news networks and newspapers choosing not to show should media outlets be showing these satirical cartoons. That decision has sparked debate among journalists and beyond. Let me bring in the Carl Bernstein, CNN political analyst and a well- noted journalist and author; and Brian Stelter, host of CNN's "Reliable Sources." Gentlemen, welcome to both of you.</s>CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST & JOURNALIST & AUTHOR: Good to be here.</s>BALDWIN: Let's begin with, do you think news organizations should be showing these cartoons?</s>BERNSTEIN: I think this is one of the most difficult questions there is to answer and there's no definitive yes-or-no answer to it that's necessarily right. I do believe we should show the image at this point after the fact.</s>BALDWIN: Why?</s>BERNSTEIN: As a matter of intellectual honesty. Solidarity and freedom of expression and freedom of religion, freedom to practice religion are all based on the same principle, and I think we need to assert it. At the same time, I think focusing on the American, and the European media, we need to focus on Islamic media. This is a big problem. The whole question of Islamic terror is a huge question for the Islamic media. They haven't responded. They haven't been courageous for years. It's time for them to take a look at their actions. I'm much more interested in them. What's happened in Paris is a huge problem indicative of what the Islamic world faces today and we need to look at that, and they need to be coming up with some solutions.</s>BERNSTEIN: And some condemnation --</s>BALDWIN: Absolutely.</s>BERNSTEIN: -- and action in the capitals of the Islamic and Arab world, presidents of the countries with huge Islamic populations, working with the United States, working with other governments in Europe to fight terrorism as a fundamental practice of their governance.</s>BALDWIN: We had an entire segment of experts who would agree with you. That's interesting. That's the first time I heard about Islamic media. Mr. Stelter.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT & CNN HOST, RELIABLE SOURCES: And al Jazeera, by the way, has chosen to do what CNN has done, which is to --</s>BALDWIN: Not show the cartoons.</s>STELTER: -- not show those images of Muhammad.</s>BALDWIN: Walk us through. Let's be a tad transparent in terms of our own decision making. It's safety. It's also part of policy. This is insensitive religious material.</s>STELTER: And it's not an entirely new issue. CNN decided in the past, years ago, not to show other images that would be considered sacrilegious to many Muslims, cartoons from Denmark a number of years ago. I want to agree with what Carl is saying. And I think every journalistic bone in our body does. But there's the other side, which is the editor or executive who decides to run these images and has an act of violence occur against a staff member.</s>BERNSTEIN: There comes a point when we have to be courageous. And this is the point where we need some solidarity. We need to be courageous. I agree totally you shouldn't show these images that are blasphemous to another people before an event like this --</s>BERNSTEIN: But as a response, just like the case with Sony. I'm the one that said that Sony, on our air, that the movie was a horror in conception. There was no need to show what it showed and, at the same time, the craven behavior of the studios, Sony, early on, the whole industry, that there had to be solidarity, and we all including CNN, including Time Warner, had to show that movie. I think the same principle obtained here.</s>BERNSTEIN: But at the same time, I'm well aware how hard this decision is and that you can have a reasonable opinion on the other side.</s>BALDWIN: But what about safety?</s>STELTER: -- the head of our network, Jeff Zucker, brought up this morning.</s>BALDWIN: And we have heard this before and it's come up in other instances in stories we were covering because, unlike some of these other blogs that don't have correspondents in these hot areas where wars are being waged, we do.</s>STELTER: Right.</s>BALDWIN: We do.</s>BERNSTEIN: That's why I talk about solidarity. I think that if our industry, if our intellectual fervor and firmament were to be united on this question, then I think we gain some safety and we can act courageously.</s>STELTER: You're describing safety in numbers.</s>BERNSTEIN: Exactly. As a movement of solidarity, yesterday, I was one of the first to sign the pen petition saying that we, as writers and artists, believe that this material must be shown. Indeed, as it's been said, we're all "Charlie Hebdo" in this situation.</s>STELTER: There is safety, but also the issue of offense. It does create a great offense. That is the other --</s>BERNSTEIN: I understand.</s>BERNSTEIN: I agree. Somehow we need to explain that this is not intended as offense. It's intended as news and as what we believe in, so that you can practice your religion.</s>STELTER: Right. For what it's worth, the head of another major division, not CNN, but another, say, we're reserving the right to show these cartoons in the future. Just because we're not today doesn't mean we won't tomorrow. And I do wonder --</s>BERNSTEIN: It's a very hard call. "The Washington Post" editorial page --</s>BERNSTEIN: -- of all things, posted it. Good for "The Washington Post" in this instance. But I think, again, back to your question of safety, more and more institutions need to do it. And not rub it in anybody's face or anything of the kind. But to say --</s>BERNSTEIN: -- this is what we believe. And I think we need to go back to the question, the larger question of what's going on in the Islamic world. Let's take a terrible comparison of Nazi, Germany. There is entirely, and has been for years since 9/11, too much silence in Islamic world about terrorism.</s>BALDWIN: But some experts say that these leaders in these nations, who should be condemning this now --</s>BERNSTEIN: Yes.</s>BALDWIN: -- have their hands tied.</s>BERNSTEIN: Well, they don't. Because they are the leaders of the country and there are also religious leaders, Islamic religious leaders who need to get on al Jazeera and say --</s>BALDWIN: Why aren't they?</s>BERNSTEIN: Maybe they are. I don't want to judge that they're not.</s>BALDWIN: A lot of them aren't.</s>BERNSTEIN: But I think it's time for the Islamic world and the so- called moderate forces of Islam in which there are hundreds of millions of people, we are not, that they have to organize.</s>BERNSTEIN: The president of Tunisia is a likely a guy who might be involved. Just as we had the struggled to contain Communism for generations, we need a world struggle to contain terrorism, intellectual basis for it, media basis for it, an armament basis for it, if need be, if it comes to conflict. We need a strategy that brings all of these things together. And to me, that's the significance of Paris that we have now come to a particular juncture in this struggle that, hopefully, is going to produce not so much a reaction here, but there.</s>BALDWIN: You have a big show on your hands with all this, Brian Stelter, on Sunday. Carl Bernstein, thank you so much. It's an excellent point. We'll continue that conversation.</s>BERNSTEIN: Thank you.</s>BALDWIN: Brian Stelter, thank you very much. Next, police right now conducting raids inside homes in the search for two terror suspects in this attack. We'll take you there live. Plus, hear what the United States is doing in surveillance of its high-profile terror suspects. Stay right here. You're watching CNN.