Today is International Free Press Day

To celebrate, or just observe, as the case may be, go read this reprint of Steyn's about the Danish "Motoon" disaster.

Here's just a taste:

This story meets all the clichés of journalistic self-aggrandizement: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”, “News is what someone doesn’t want you to put in the paper”. But it seems it’s one thing to “speak truth to power” when the power’s George Bush or John Ashcroft, quite another when it’s an Islamist mob coming to burn your building down. Needless to say, reflex blowhardism is so ingrained in the media class they couldn’t resist passing off their prioritizing of self-preservation as a bold principled stand.


Or as Philip Lee, professor of journalism at St Thomas University in New Brunswick, put it:

"Freedom of the press means you can publish, or not. Not publishing is also an expression of freedom."

Up to a point, Lord Jello.