Two conservative journalists -- Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, and Scott Anderson, editor in chief of the Ottawa Citizen -- debated the cartoons issue on CBC's The Current today.

You can listen to the RealAudio file here.

"We didn't really see the value of publishing these cartoons at this time," Anderson said.

"I respect Scott very much, but that's ridiculous what he just said," replied Levant.

"In the radio business, you have to paint pictures with words. But luckily, Scott and I both have access to a printing press, and when an image is the centre of a story, use your printing press and show it. ... I simply don't believe this was an easy or proper choice for a newspaper not to show it, unless there was another larger reason than freedom of the press, like fear of an economic backlash or fear of physical violence.

"Those are legitimate reasons not to do something, as a human, as a businessman or as a publisher, but to simply say they're not interesting or not appropriate is not credible."

Anderson said he thought they described the cartoons, which he felt were interesting, very well.

"I think this whole debate has become about something that is more than just cartoons and I don't think we quite understand it yet," he said. "The cartoons seem to have been a catalyst for pent-up anger that far exceeds the original cartoons. I don't think the cartoons are central in that sense."

Anderson said on any given day, the Citizen could publish something that would offend one group or another, "but we don't because we have standards."

Levant pounced on that.

"Showing these pictures is not just important because they were the alleged excuse for the rioting," he said. "It's how bland they are."

On a daily basis, the Citizen's cartoons have more bite, he said. "That's something you can only tell by seeing them." He went on to say the cartoon supports "Scott's point, that obviously these riots were trumped up."

Levant said: "The Citizen and every other paper in the country publishes more offensive things than these regularly, especially when the offended persons are, for example, Christians who don't like being poked fun at or anyone else. The difference here is not that these cartoons were particularly offensive. It's that people threatened violence in response.

"I believe every editor, publisher and TV producer in this country had in the back of their mind not some newfound respect for religion, not some newfound respect for taste or standards, but fear. And it's OK to be a little afraid, but don't couch it in 'oh, these are boring, oh, these are not central, oh, it was easy.' No it wasn't."

Host Anna-Maria Tremonte asked Anderson if he agreed the cartoons were bland.

"Yes and no," he said. "I think some of them are just poorly done, frankly. ... I think the backlash against the cartoons is about something else. I don't think we've explored that deeply enough as media organizations, frankly. But to Ezra's earlier point, I think one thing we don't do as responsible journalists is offend for the sake of offending. And that's what we would be doing by publishing those cartoons now."

"The way to show that freedom of the press works and freedom of expression works is not to poke them in the eye with it."

Levant said the Western Standard didn't publish the cartoons "because we agree with them. Some of them don't even have a point ... We didn't publish these cartoons  to offend, we published them to illustrate a news story, to say why are people burning down embassies, why are people rioting? It's because of these innocuous cartoons."

An Arab asked him the other day if he would publish an anti-Semitic cartoon, Levant said. "Well yes, if Jews around the world were rioting and burning down embassies because of an anti-Semitic cartoon, that would be a huge news story. We'd want to show it, not because we agree with anti-Semitism, but because it's news."

Anderson said there are repercussions in any news decision. "In this case, we know that publishing the cartoons would blind people to the real story. It's become a point of contention that, we don't need to stir it up like that.

Tremonte said CBC editor in chief Tony Burman said in a statement that CBC didn't publish the cartoons out of respect for not just Islam, but all religions.

(Note: Hey Tony: Check out some of the old CodCo sketches involving priests and tell me again about the CBC's feelings on offending religions - Bill D.)

Anderson agreed they wouldn't deliberately offend Jews, blacks or certain Christian churches.

"This pretend deference to religion doesn't pass the giggle test," Levant said, using the "Piss Christ" episode as an example.

"The only difference is the little church ladies writing letters to the editors or protesting aren't very scary. But in Ottawa these days, there's a lot of Arabs and Muslims, and I think that in the back of their minds, the people of the Ottawa Citizen and certainly Tony Burman, who loves to poke at Christians and be transgressive, this 'newfound respect for religion' is code word for 'I'm afraid.'"

Anderson described that as nonsense.

Asked where he draw the line on religion, Levant said, "... We pretend to be a news magazine and the CBC pretends to be a news channel." 

"There are times when you do rally around the notion you have to publish something come hell or high water. This isn't one of those cases," Anderson said, noting the Juliet O'Neill case has already cost his paper $600,000.