There seems to be a mild acceptance that a roving, hard-nosed, parachute-into-danger kind of journalist, such as war correspondents, have to embrace danger as part of their truth-seeking role.
It is terrible when an international photojournalist is killed or imprisoned, but a million people won't march in the street to protest about it.
These brave journalists go to countries where the rule of law may be, to put it kindly, flexible, and thus the risk is ever-present.
What hits home so hard about the Paris massacre is that it's too close to home.
The concept of armed people gunning down civilians in a Western city is too much for the general public to take.
When you stay at home, you're supposed to be safe.
If it happened in that office block, it could happen to anyone.
Did Charlie Hebdo poke the tiger too much? Its cartoons were offensive to many.
People argue that freedom of speech is not a free-for-all; it carries responsibilities. And in this case, the "tigers" are extreme madmen, warped beyond reason to a distorted philosophy few of their religion could stomach.
To surrender to the idea that Charlie Hebdo brought it on themselves is to degrade freedom of speech out of fear. At what point, what level, do you decide your freedom to make a point should be restrained? There are always remedies to offensive publications. Our societies have evolved successfully away from "red" propaganda and racist literature. We learn through protest - another action we all have a right to do - and through market forces, if no one buys what we write. A lunatic who kills journalists changes nothing. And that is why Je suis Charlie.
