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Case Studies: Freedom and Responsibility
security office requested that Daniel
report to them, she decided to leave
the country. Once out of Nigeria, she
learned that Islamic leaders had
issued a fatwa for her death. Only
then did she realize that this would not
simply “blow over,” as many had
thought.
Although at first she agreed with her
newspaper’s decision to run
apologies, Daniel now thinks the
paper should have defended freedom
of the press more strongly. She
wishes more people had paid
attention to the serious points she
raised in the article. Instead, she says,
“all that got lost in the sentence about
Mohammed.” More than anything, she
worries about the effect that the
reaction to her article will have on
freedom of expression in Nigeria.
“The violence was a blackmail on all
journalists and so it definitely makes it
impossible for a journalist to
criticize or express freely a view on
a religious figure,” she says. “Nigeria
loses because her conscience is
already nonexistent, and with a weak
press it can only get worse.”
Daniel is now in hiding, working on a
book and rethinking her future. In an
article she wrote for The Guardian
describing her experience, she
responds to one commentator who
regretted that Daniel was not hurt by
the violence that killed hundreds.
Daniel writes, “physical pain is not the
worst kind of pain…I unknowingly lit
the match. I haven't dropped it yet; it is
still in my hand.”
Questions for Discussion
1. What is the role of an opinion
piece versus a straight news
piece? Are there different ethical
standards for each?
2. What responsibility does a
journalist have with a potentially
volatile topic?
3. Daniel wrote about a sensitive,
religious topic in a tone that was
meant to be “breezy, sarcastic,
Nigerians walk past the Lagos offices of This Day newspaper, which was
the subject of the protests and riots over an article that had offended
Muslims.
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