mediawatchwatch.org.uk

Flemming Rose, the art editor of Jyllands-Posten who published the Motoons, is interviewed by the South African Daily News. In it he insists that he has no regrets about his decision, and that the crisis was on the whole “beneficial” because it brought certain facts to light:

[The drawings were] a catalyst that shed light on a hidden reality: that some Muslims want everyone in the world to respect their dogmas in public.

There are so many religions that have taboos. If we had to respect them all, Denmark would be a dictatorship

He also warns of the dangers of self-censorship, not least because one risks betraying
“moderate Muslims who want to live in a secular Western society, where religion is a private affair.”

Another one with no regrets is the artist responsible for the turban-bomb cartoon, Kurt Westergaard, who appeared on Danish TV saying he “would do it again without a doubt”.

The Sunday Express (no link – the self-styled “World’s Greatest Newspaper” has the world’s worst newspaper website) has a piece about Charlotte Church’s show on Channel 4, which has attracted “scores of complaints” about her use of fruity language. Andrew Newman, head of entertainment at C4, is quite robust in his defence of the potty-mouthed Welsh diva:

If people don’t like her swearing they can piss off! I certainly don’t worry about swearing. She’s 20. Anyone who watches Channel 4 on Friday night will know we’re pretty relaxed about that.

Which, on the face of it, seems an eminently reasonable response.

Not according to “Massah” John Beyer, the smut-campaigner from Mediawatch-UK, who accuses Newman of “real arrogance”:

His comments do not surprise me. It’s a scandal that a channel which is a public service broadcaster, that seek to rake off money from the licence fee and enjoys the support of the Secretary of State, can say such a thing. The channel is arrogant in the extreme. I call upon advertisers to boycott this show (and Channel 4 as a whole) and look to their consciences. If we ever want to get rid of yob culture, we have to do something about these programmes. The reason that young people swear so much is because it has been normalised on television.

“Off” is not just the button on the remote which would solve the problems which Beyer and his biddies have with shows such as Ms Church’s – it is also something which he should seriously consider pissing.