As someone who feels strongly about the sanctity of the First Amendment, I support the right to publish news images, regardless of how distasteful—and even hateful—they are. If it serves the public interest, and has real news value, then it should be brought out into the open. My colleague Bruce Schimmel is fond of saying, "The only cure for hate speech is more speech." Censoring these images does little to change people's sentiments.

Having said that, media outlets have an obligation to avoid gratuitously inflammatory images, which are intended to insult, demean or express hatred toward groups or individuals for no other reason than to incite hostility. If there is a point to be expressed, then by all means, express it—regardless of how unpopular it is. But if we're just out to piss on people or institutions because we can, then we're abusing our First Amendment privilege. It's cheap, it's easy and it compromises our integrity.

With regard to the Inquirer's decision to run "the cartoon," Inquirer editor Amanda Bennett was simply grandstanding, taking a shot at making national news by stating that it's "one of the things newspapers do to communicate directly with people." Denmark's Jyllands-Posten may have had an appropriate context for publishing caricatures of Mohammed back in September. I don't know. But the Inquirer did not. Most American newspapers chose, instead, to describe the cartoon. In part, I suspect, they did this out of deference to the Muslim community, and in part because the printed word is the other way newspapers communicate with people.

Former Inquirer editor Bob Rosenthal, now at the San Francisco Chronicle, made that point on CNN last Thursday night. He felt that, First Amendment or no First Amendment, it just felt "gratuitous" to show the cartoon. And for the Inquirer, whose journalistic edge disappeared long ago, the decision smacked of hypocrisy. If they really felt that they were serving the interest of their readers, then why choose to run the image "discreetly," as Bennett put it, in their Saturday edition, which has the lowest circulation of the week, and not the Sunday edition, which boasts the highest?

"Journalists need the humility to listen, because things are often more complicated than they appear," said New Yorker media critic Ken Auletta a few weeks back at an information conference I attended in Los Angeles. He was speaking on the subject of journalistic ethics and the state of the American press.

It occurred to me that this issue is one of those things. And that's when I began to more fully appreciate Amanda Bennett's decision. Bennett took a calculated risk to grab a headline, aiming to give the impression that the Inquirer is more than a provincial daily.

But what really motivated her decision? Was she being pressured by fellow editors to "seize the moment"? Or, in the face of overwhelming challenges to re-establish the Inky as relevant and fearless, was she taking a desperate first step toward repositioning the newspaper?

We live in a culturally divided world. What passes for acerbic wit in one culture translates into distasteful satire in another, and may incite violence in a third. Editors who choose to knowingly publish inflammatory images should be prepared for the fallout.

In America, we don't bomb buildings, or incite riots, or kill one another over inflammatory images. We express our dissent through letters, and through other media. We organize and stage boycotts. We pressure political leaders.

Maybe, in the end, that's what Bennett was banking on: some national headlines, a few interviews, but little to no lasting consequences.

Consistency and integrity are the foundations for building trust. And trust is critical to a news organization. Without it, readers won't give up their valuable time. I hope that the next time the Inky is faced with having to choose between integrity and opportunism, they'll take the high road—regardless of the topic. Until they establish that commitment, this decision feels hollow.

Paul Curci is the publisher of the City Paper.