We heard four, possibly five large explosions. Now i hear gunfire. Automatic fire. Shots. Braking news from the stand offs in paris. The siege is over. At least six hostages reported freed. Four other hostages now reported murdered. Three terrorists are dead. Idea murder how did nbc and msnbc get the facts so wrong . Should News Organization run the antimuslim cartoon . Mitt romney weighing another president ial bid. Are journalists trying to draft him . Or being used . Bill cosby fights pack as new accusers surface and nbc allows shriver to report on her own movie. This is media buzz. I am howard kurtz. The satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo is everlast, symbol after the vicious shootings at the office that left 12 people dead. The paper was known for mocking islam and after the cartoon poked fun at the prophet mohammed terrorists fire bombed the offices and the editor refused to be cowed. We come from a country with freedom of speech. I prefer to die than run. Front pages an the world paying tribute to this courageous man and his staff. The fact it was an attack on journalists, on our free press. These terrorists do not believe in freedom of speech and freedom the speech. Now as the debate emamericans how the president and his aides were describing the attack. There is a long history of the white house being very very reluctant to talk about terrorism and call something terrorism but they quickly called it american because it was so obviously terrorism. What they have not done is call it islamic terrorism. I stop calling these people muslims, they are as muslim as i am. They have no respect for anyone moves life. That is not what the koran says. Strange words were use by cnn picked up by an early comment from Charlie Hebdo previously. On this day they found the targets, a clear attack on freedom of expression and satire. How about murderrists and jihadists . We have former nbc senior correspondent, and casey mcfar lane former Defense Department official, and a Fox News Contributor, fred. A Million People are gathering on the streets of paris today in a unity march. We do not usually consider satirists as great champions of free speech. Charlie hebdo were champions of free speech. I found it offensive most of the time but that is part of the joy of democracy. You can do this. You can be offensive. You can be racist. They were. Very often. We have lost them. However, in losing them look what has happened here. We have a Million People on the streets of paris right now. Maybe this will change. We have lost the individuals who were killed but the paper plans to publish next week. And a girl said they did not marry or have kids because Charlie Hebdo new he would die. This is media debate driven partly by pox and president obama has fallen short is we saw it earlier because he will not call them terrorists. That is a fundamentally question because unless you call it what it is you did not know how to go after it. This is assault on western values and this is similar to what isis did, targeting journalists and captured journalists in syria and iraq and beheaded journalists. Why . Because they wanted it she the world, dont mess with us. Dont report on what we are doing. Dont offend. This is how we respond. It is an important debate. In terms of what happened in france this week even french leaders admit it was a failure of french intelligence but this is a healthy debate about president obamas role. Is it misdirected . I dont think so. I think something very important happened in the reaction. We now see today european leaders from all over the place con veteranning in paris, marching in the march. They are calling this radical islamic, the ideology that gave root to this. At this point for the president he doesnt have to cross some kind of line. He can lead from behind. He can state the obvious. He can join the rest of the world in naming it what it is. In terms of the strategy and the failures of french intelligence, this is beginning to be a huge debate. These people were being followed but according to the french officials they wasnt the resources to track every single one of these people. This isnt just a failure of french intelligence but a failure of intelligence throughout europe. They have dropped the bomb. They are overwhelmed by radical islam. Do you think the coverage is adequately reflect that . No one is speaking of it. You cannot cover it because it is so overwhelming. They have not spent the money, neither the french or the germans. Until they do that, we are going to have what we have. Another part of media reaction is a great debate about whether news organizes as a gesture or solidarity should run the cartoons as Charlie Hebdo did. Let me show you what a Fox News Contributor said. The correct response to this attack by all of us in journalism, we pretend to be so brave. If we had guts those cartoons would be reprinted on the front pinch of New York Times and the wall street journal and the Los Angeles Times tomorrow but they wont be. We will cry. We are going to continue to self censure. The Washington Post ran one of the cartoons but k. T. Is it cowardly not to run them . I understand why the organizations do not want to they are worried they put their people at risk. If everyone did it if everyone ran the pictures and said, this is what incited the silent, this is the excuse radical jihadist used, it would be a strong statement. We have all the journalists talking moral high ground but they are not doing it. We have seen those car troops reprinted in a lot of places and denmark is a good example. The publication that First Published the cartoon that got the journalist kill and Charlie Hebdo reprinted it and got fire bombed every paper in denmark now is publishing except for the one who said they have to recollect their people. Fox news is not running the car troops saying safety of the correspondents and questions of taste are an issue here. Cnn president said he is torn he wants to run them but told the staff protecting our employees is more important right now. I agree with that. I dont agree you run these because if you are a worldwide News Organization and you are standing in the street in belgium or in beirut and it says cfn or you are the New York Times you are a target. You are a big tar get if you run these things. I feel safe as a journalist in this country. I dont have to worry about that in this country. But if you have overseas correspondents you need to be worried. New york times said we do not normally print images deliberately offending sensibilities. Last night a newspaper in germany was attacked by arson. I disagree. If there is any guts, if there is any courage, if there is any role that a free media has it is to call it what it is. If we are selfcensuring, and cowering, free speech is gone. You have never been a journalist on the front line where you have guns from one faction over here and guns from another faction over there and they know you represent america, they dont know whether it is nbc or f you represent america. You are a target. I say dont run the cartoons. Why is it more than a symbolic gesture . What i would like to say in response to the heinous acts is more a continued aggressive reporting on islamic terrorists and even mockery but to run the cartoons some of which are offensive to various religious sensibilities including a cartoon that shows we toilet paper bibled bible, koran, the torah. The responsibility, then sex to go to the zones throughout europe and france and germany and switzerland and sweden and britain and report on what is going on. Those are places are journalists dont go. There has been in the press the beginning of something i hope continues which is reporting on the Muslim Community and how radical islam fits in and what they are doing to expel or not doing to expel it and that is one of the most important things to solve this problem and that has to be a serious concerted effort. That has happened this week because it is a hot story this week. I am sorry, but it is not going to continue next week. I dont believe it. I dont believe moderate clerics are going to take up this cry. They havent. They have had plenty of opportunity since 9 11 to do so. They havent. I would add we need to look and we are seeing stories at antisemetism which is no accident that kosher supermarket was one of the places where hostages were taken. To come back to the courage of the people who ran this Charlie Hebdo newspaper, the office was fire bombed in 2011 after the paper ran a mohammed cartoon that offended muslims. Why want to suggest or imply that the newspaper was responsible for this barbaric act. There was an ongoing argument that was criticized by french officials and by the Obama White House in 2012 that the paper was unnecessarily insulting or provocative toward religion. This has changed that. In other words this has transcended that. You can name blame the victim. This is not the time to have this debate but about the principle of western values. Some of this you find offensive oratist and you do not want to defend it. I defend their right to do it i understand but i will thy for your right to say it. And they do. But, in fact the french didnt. Okay . If we see a Million People in the streets of paris today, are they willing to put troops on the ground to go after radical islam . That is why the terrorists said they were attacking Charlie Hebdo because of the situation in the middle east. Serious number of troops on the ground and we are talking aboutually going if they want to be martyrs make it so. We have fought seen the french do that. Important point is this is a hot story but we know how the media runs from one crisis to the next. It cannot be forgotten. My take away is freedom of speech means protecting odious speech offensive speech otherwise it is meaningless. I am sure you have a last opinions. Tweet me and i will read some of the messages. We will talk to Washington Post cartoonist about the risk the satire and the collosal mistake by nbc on the attack. How did this happen . Heartburn. Did someone say burn . Try alka seltzer reliefchews. They work just as fast and are proven to taste better than tums smoothies assorted fruit. Mmm. Amazing. Yeah, i get that a lot. Alka seltzer heartburn reliefchews. Enjoy the relief. For most people, earning cash back ends here, at the purchase. But theres a new card in town. Introducing the citi® double cash card. It lets you earn cash back when you buy and again as you pay. Thats cash back twice. Its cash back with a side of cash back. The citi double cash card. The only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1 when you buy and 1 as you pay. With two ways to earn, it makes a lot of other cards seem onesided. As the manhunt for the p as the manhunt intensified on wednesday, nbc report add Dramatic Development that continues on msnbc. We have breaking news. Nbc has just learned that one of the suspects has been killed and two are in custody. A seen major United States counterterrorism official tells nbc that at this hour one suspect has been killed and two other suspects are in custody. Signatures after that news was delivered, Pete Williams who reported the original story started backing off. To be fair here, we just dont know exactly what the situation is in france. There have been conflicting reports whether an arrest has been made. The next night, a retraction for those relying on the unnamed United States officials. While the sources have been reliable in our previous reporting, the intel they passed last night turned out fought to be correct. Pete williams is usually a reliable reporter but to report one is dead and taken interest custody on wednesday. That is a big mistake the. We will see more of it . Traditional media is reporting newspaper, but people are getting their news from the interprets 24 7 every few minutes you refresh so the push is for the Mainstream Media to try to get throughout and be fast and they make mistakes. The good old days when i was at the pentagon when we did grenada we took guys like fled and had them out in the water so there would not be leaks. Let me make this point, Pete Williams is the finest, one of the finest reporters in this town and i have worked with him for 30 years and he had and i have done reporting on this, he had multiple sources from multiple answers in the u. S. Government getting information from french intelligence and french Law Enforcement over a period of a couple of hours before he reported that. His reporting has been so accurate over the last two decades with the same sources in the u. S. Government that you would have to go with that information. He did. Because it was but the information was bad from france. The french were telling the fbi and the Justice Department and the c. I. A. The same thing. That is the risk. We saw this with the Boston Marathon bombing situation and this has happened in fox and elsewhere, even if you are right, what is the great scoop of getting it ten minutes before it goes out . The risk is tremendous. Risk is greater than the benefit of being right. Who cares . People are looking at the internet every second. What does it mean if you beat another network by 35 seconds. It matters, mara. With the social media fed a tweet goes out that nbc has a break in the story people switch to nbc. It is fought worth the risk. The benefit of that is not worth being wrong. My point in 23 years it is rare that someone like Pete Williams make as mistake like this. I said that at the top. Overall the reporting on this was good. Different question. No. I want to make a point. The french reporter they reported that Hayat Boumeddiene was a suspect in the grocery store. She wasnt even in the country. A lost bad news is coming down. Conflicting accounts. I cannot resolve that right now. Is there anything in the story we are missing . Everyone is missing the big story. The real story . The president of egypt came out and went to the top religious university in the muslim world and he said to the imams, you need a revolution, it is your fault we are hated, radical us sham i lay it at your feet you have to change. That has had earthquakes in the arab world. The question i raise when we go to the nonstep coverage that the whole world is watching and whether we are giving terrorists what they want to go out as they see in their twisted way a blaze of glory. Thanks so much this morning. On media buzz we will go to paris for a live report on the challenges of covering this fastmoving story. Why do i cook . Because i make the best chicken noodle soup. Because i make the best chicken noodle soup. Because i make the best chicken noodle soup. For every way you make chicken noodle soup, make it delicious with swanson®. Music melodic, calm music. Hi, this is jennifer. I will be out of the office until monday. And wont be checking voicemail during this time. 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It was hard to describe to our in america the impact of that newspaper and the cartoonists but the best we to describe it say jay leno and David Letterman and jon stewart and other comics were in the same office and they all got assassinated the it is almost the equivalent of what the folks here in france feel. They love satire and their cartoonists. It is a huge blow in many different ways. That is a striking analogy. When you are covering the unfolding of this news and it and live and we my little whether the two hostage situations were connected there were a lot of false rumors floating around and i mentioned the report on nbc, and another report you were chasing from bbc. Talk about how you decide what you can report and what you can and cannot confirm. It was a challenge. This was a breaking story, breaking on all sorts of fronts but that and what we are paid to do, to sort it out. French gover