The right to have your Islamophobic voice heard

It is only relatively recently that social norms again seemed to allow the free expression of racist and Islamophobic ideas. In the recent past, such things were kept hidden.

Today’s letter to the editor in the Star Tribune, however, raises anew an ongoing question since the days the internet gave people a voice that — conventional wisdom says — they did not previous have. Ironically, this comes in the oldest of media.

Unquestionably, there is a right to free speech (the very concept of it was buttressed by a Minnesotan who was one of the worst journalists by any standard); that’s not the issue. This is: Does journalism have a responsibility to give it a megaphone?

Discuss.