The British and American press are faced with an editorial decision. An overwhelming majority of their newspapers declined to publish the Mohammed cartoons claiming that the images were too offensive to Muslims among numerous other excuses. Now, the French Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten, the same Danish daily that commissioned the cartoons, have printed a manifesto signed by 12 well-known academics and writers including Salman Rushdie, that is undoubtedly anti-Islamist Extremist and will certainly be interpreted by some in the global Muslim community as clear evidence that the West is prejudice against them. So, if Muslims find this manifesto offensive, how will the British and American press report on it?

This question arises when studying the debate between newspaper editors, their staff and the public in general (whose voice is the blogosphere). Most of the public opined that editors published poor excuses, summed up at the Christian Science Monitor, for not having printed the cartoons:

Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor WaPo - "They wouldn't meet our standards for what we publish in the paper."

Jim Michaels, deputy foreign editor, USA Today - "We have described (the cartoons), but I am not sure running it would advance the story."

The Guardian - "It would be senselessly provocative to reproduce a set of images, of no intrinsic value, which pander to the worst prejudices about Muslims."

The blogosphere was, however, happy with this excuse from the Boston Phoenix quoted at journalist Rory O'Conner's blog:

"At least Boston Phoenix editors were honest enough to admit that they were terrorized and feared 'retaliation from the international brotherhood of radical and bloodthirsty Islamists who seek to impose their will on those who do not believe as they do.' Noting that they 'believe in the principles of free speech and a free press,' they declined to 'place the men and women who work at the Phoenix and its related companies in physical jeopardy'."

This is where the decisions for the US and UK press come in to play. If editors were true in their reasoning that they did not print the cartoons because they are offensive to Muslims who believe that idolatry of the Prophet is sacrilege, then they could report on the manifesto as it is not at all contradictory to the Muslim faith.

But, if the real reason that these papers did not print the Mohammed cartoons because they feared violent retaliation, as much of the public and this Boston Globe editorial suspect, then chances are the Rushdie Manifesto will receive minimal coverage or be ignored completely.

If there are threats on the authors of the manifesto or the 2 newspapers that initially published it, how will British and US newspapers react?

Will editors, as they did with the cartoons, simply "describe" the manifesto, perhaps in words less virulent than this excerpt from the Jyllands-Posten:

"Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people."

Sources: Christian Science Monitor, Media is Plural (Rory O'Connor's blog), The Boston Globe, Jyllands-Posten

ps. As of the time of this posting, a GoogleNews search for "Jyllands Posten manifesto" showed that only the Toronto Star, The Brussels Journal, Canada Free Press, South Africa's Mail & Guardian and Independent, Middle East Online UK and the Middle East Times, Egypt had published articles about the manifesto.