Malaysian Printer Blacks Out Pigs’ Faces in New York Times Issue
- 10 years ago
In preparing the Malaysian version of the New York Times, the company that prints it took it upon themselves to black out the faces of the pigs featured in the issue.
In preparing the Malaysian version of the International New York Times recently, the company that prints it took it upon themselves to black out the faces of the pigs featured in the issue.
The article was about the growing US demand for pork free of antibiotics and featured two pictures of the animals.
On both the cover and the interior accompanying photos the swine got the black-bar, top-secret treatment.
The move was quickly ridiculed by many Facebook users. One wrote ‘poor piggies’ while another honed in on the photos’ humor, calling them ‘hilarious’.
The printing company did come forward to explain why they did it.
An international news agency was told, "This is a Muslim country, so we covered the pigs' eyes."
As Muslims consider pigs to be unclean and 60 percent of Malaysia practices Islam, images of the animals are not well accepted.
Another news outlet was informed that the printing of pig photos isn’t allowed in the country.
It was further pointed out that it’s common practice for them to block images of guns, cigarettes, and nudes.
They don’t normally wait for authorities to tell them what to obscure, they just do it.
In preparing the Malaysian version of the International New York Times recently, the company that prints it took it upon themselves to black out the faces of the pigs featured in the issue.
The article was about the growing US demand for pork free of antibiotics and featured two pictures of the animals.
On both the cover and the interior accompanying photos the swine got the black-bar, top-secret treatment.
The move was quickly ridiculed by many Facebook users. One wrote ‘poor piggies’ while another honed in on the photos’ humor, calling them ‘hilarious’.
The printing company did come forward to explain why they did it.
An international news agency was told, "This is a Muslim country, so we covered the pigs' eyes."
As Muslims consider pigs to be unclean and 60 percent of Malaysia practices Islam, images of the animals are not well accepted.
Another news outlet was informed that the printing of pig photos isn’t allowed in the country.
It was further pointed out that it’s common practice for them to block images of guns, cigarettes, and nudes.
They don’t normally wait for authorities to tell them what to obscure, they just do it.