What offends you? The dead body of an Iraqi child? The irreverent use of a religious symbol? The boiling down of modern geopolitics into a simple formula of ‘us’ versus ‘them’? Or how about the word ‘damn’?

In this feature article for JournalismEthics.ca’s special report on offensive journalism and freedom of expression, Catherine Rolfsen takes a global view on the question of ‘what is offensive journalism?’ to argue that the term often confounds debates on free speech.