Interesting comment by Charlie Beckett.

What struck me was how weird it is that these people — and they do deserve the label ‘terrorist’ — have struck against cartoonists. Not drone manufacturers or military bases, diplomats, politicians or financiers, but satirists. It shows what we should have already known. That journalism is part of the ideological war. It is the front-line.

That makes it all the more important that journalists respond thoughtfully and responsibly. I am not going to tell editors what they should publish in relation to this story. But it would be good if their response is in the best tradition of liberal, positive journalism and not just an angry, lashing out that feeds the fear that helps sustain those who perpetrate the violence.

On the other hand, commenting on the firebombing of the Charlie Hebdo offices in 2011, the Time Bureau Chief in Paris at the time wrote this:

It’s obvious free societies cannot simply give in to hysterical demands made by members of any beyond-the-pale group. And it’s just as clear that intimidation and violence must be condemned and combated for whatever reason they’re committed—especially if their goal is to undermine freedoms and liberties of open societies. But it’s just evident members of those same free societies have to exercise a minimum of intelligence, calculation, civility and decency in practicing their rights and liberties—and that isn’t happening when a newspaper decides to mock an entire faith on the logic that it can claim to make a politically noble statement by gratuitously pissing people off.