Why Charlie Hebdo is every reader's business

FOR those who love a good laugh, this has been an exceedingly grim week. The massacre at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has violated, in the worst possible way, the amorphous compact between press and public - a compact that has allowed opinion, debate and expression to flourish in a First World country.

There has always been violence towards the press, even before Wednesday's horrific event which left 12 people dead.

But this shooting, with its graphic visuals and loud thunderclaps of Kalashnikov gunfire, will become the watershed moment that will force its way into the calculation of risk and reward that journalists and editors already make on a daily basis about any story or opinion that they place under their publication's masthead.