Should US media have published the offending cartoon images?

I believe that US media should have published the offending cartoon images Charlie Hebdo published before they got attacked. The major factor as to why they should publish the images is because by not doing so, they are taking a major part of the journalistic formula out of the question. Saying why Charlie Hebdo's headquarters got attacked is far less powerful than showing what images sparked so much anger that an attack would be the next step in a series of events. Essentially, the media ended up being dishonest via omission of a very critical piece of the story. It is true that republishing the images would be offensive to Muslims in the US. However, news outlets like the New York Times and Washington Post have a much broader audience than just Muslim Americans. For non-Muslims, it is not offensive, and since that is the larger segment of the audience, the greater good would be to publish the images. As we saw in class, news organizations have no problems publishing photos of dead bodies in both small and large-scale violent situations. These images tend to be far more distasteful and graphic than an animated cartoon drawing that at worst is crass and disrespectful. When it comes to a public safety standpoint, I can see the logic in not publishing the Charlie Hebdo images uncensored, because an organization was attacked for doing so. In an overall sense, the news organizations had no one officially telling them they couldn't publish the Charlie Hebdo images. All such decisions came from withing, and so the freedom of the press did not get infringed upon in this situation. This made it a judgment call for the various organizations. It's important for the organizations to have the opportunity to publish or withhold the images as many US media outlets did, because this gives them the flexibility to work in a more ethical manner. In the case of Charlie Hebdo, they decided it would be unnecessary to put themselves in danger and offend part of their audience by publishing the images. In other situations, media groups have taken a different approach. As long as they are doing everything they can to produce an unbiased story, the media are doing the right thing from a journalistic standpoint.