In fact, I've previously uttered the same sentiments as Stephen B. Shepard, dean of the City University of New York's graduate school of journalism.

He said a Chronicle of Higher Education interview:

"People complain all the time that the profession isn't diverse enough. And I don't mean diversity just in the sense of racial and ethnic diversity, but I mean in class terms, too. Working-class people, immigrants, people who have served in the military. The press in this country is not very representative."

H/T to Jim Romenesko

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld thinks the U.S. is doing a second-rate job of using the Internet and satellite TV to combat al Qaeda and other enemies in the struggle to win Muslim hearts and ...   more »

Novelist Kamila Shamsie, writing from Karachi, Pakistan, about the Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy, says there is a growing belief there that the cartoons were published (and re-published) as a deliberate provocation to Islamic countries.

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Gorodskiye Vesti, or City News, the official paper of Volvograd, has been given a month to liquidate itself after publishing a cartoon  showing Muhammad along with Jesus, Moses and Buddha. "Well, we did not teach them that," Moses says in a caption, as the four watched a TV broadcast of a conflict between two groups.

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Denmark has temporarily closed its embassy in Pakistan while Pakistan is recalling its ambassador from Denmark.

A Muslim cleric in Pakistan and a minister in India's state of Uttar Pradesh have offered rewards for whoever kills or beheads the cartoonist.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said the following in Pakistan:

"I strongly disagree with the creation and publication of cartoons that are considered blasphemous by the Muslims around the world," the AFP news agency quotes him as saying. "I thought it was a mistake."

Addendum:

Minutes after I posted this, the BBC flashed an alert that nine people died in a protest outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Apparently, the protesters were angry over an anti-immigrant cabinet minister's decision to wear a t-shirt bearing one of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.

The editor-in-chief and opinion page editor of the Daily Illini at the University of Illinois-Champaign have been suspended after publishing the Prophet Muhammad cartoons in their Feb. 9 issue.

Marc Weisblott of Paved.ca linked to a terrific article by Clive Thompson for New York Magazine called Blogs to Riches. It talks about the haves and have-nots of the blogosphere and why the laws of social physics make getting ahead so tough.

Akeel Mohammed wrote a letter to the Toronto Star on Tuesday that shows some misunderstanding about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I attempt to explain.

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