Dominique Wolton on the dangers of "excessive media coverage"

In an interview with William Bourton, the French researcher and media specialist Dominique Wolton draws a lesson from the scandal of the caricatures of the prophet Mohammed that shook the world in February 2006. "Our own excessive media coverage accelerated reaction on the 'Arab street' ... We need to make a mutual effort to avoid doing shocking things. Thus the question of reciprocity is posed. One way of carrying out our work informing people over the months following the scandal would have been to say to the Arab-Muslim world, 'OK, let's refrain from caricaturising you'. But also to ask them, 'How do you represent the Western world?' and 'What status do you accord, not so much to Jews (as we know that there exists an anti-Zionist, even anti-Semitic rhetoric), but to Christians of the Near and Middle East?'"

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