This Mike Marland Cartoon ran
in the Monitor on 9/12/2001
Posted on 02/08/2002 7:59:07 PM PST by calvin sun
Judgment is at the heart of my job as editor of the Monitor, and because judgment is subjective, it can be wrong as well as right. The decision to run Mike Marland's Friday editorial cartoon was mine alone, and it was a mistake.
The cartoon depicted a caricature of George Bush flying a toy plane toward the World Trade Center. Marland had written "Social" on one tower and "Security" on the other.
Marland is a free-lancer. He's a terrific cartoonist, and we've been lucky to have him on the Monitor's editorial pages for nearly 20 years. Perhaps some readers remember that in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11 his cartoons captured American grief, anger and resolve. We've reprinted one of them with this column.
This Mike Marland Cartoon ran in the Monitor on 9/12/2001 |
I first saw the Bush cartoon Thursday night on a proof of the next day's editorial page. I knew instantly it would be controversial, meaning I knew there would be a public outcry if we ran it.
That alone is not reason enough to pull an editorial cartoon. An editorial cartoonist's function in life is to provoke. Whenever I see a cartoon that I think might be too provocative, I ask myself whether the reaction I am experiencing is an impulse to edit or an impulse to censor. If it is the latter, I err on the side of publishing and resolve to take the heat if there is any.
That was my thought pattern with Marland's Bush cartoon. I thought that rejecting the cartoon would be censorship. The attack on the trade towers was a singular, devastating event, but my own reaction to the cartoon was not visceral. Rather, I read it as I thought Marland had intended it: as strong criticism of the threat that Bush's budget poses to Social Security.
On Friday, after the cartoon ran, I spoke with Marland to tell him I was writing this column. One idea behind the cartoon, he said, was that the terrorist attack had had a direct bearing on Bush's budget and the fate of Social Security. But my decision to run the cartoon assumed that for others, as for myself, enough time had passed for the wounds of Sept. 11 to heal and for the terrorist attacks to take their place in the long history of political satire. Sometimes artists, including political cartoonists, get there before the rest of us. I thought this might be such a time. In retrospect, the decision was wrong for three interrelated reasons.
First, I should have foreseen that most readers' reaction to the cartoon would have nothing to do with Bush and Social Security. That was Marland's intended subject, and since there was nothing subtle about his message on the issue, there was no question readers would understand it. But their principal response would be to the use of the tower tragedy in a cartoon.
That was the second reason I should have spiked the cartoon: The spot where the towers stood is sacred territory. Yes, the country has had time to pass through all the stages of grief, but the World Trade Center site remains a symbol of national sorrow. Probably that will be true long after the events of Sept. 11 have passed from human memory.
Finally, running the cartoon was a mistake because we live in the world of the Internet. A local editor no longer makes decisions in a vacuum. Residents of Central New Hampshire took the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath personally, but personal connections to those events were few. Had I been an editor in New York City, there is no way I would have even considered publishing this cartoon.
Well, these days, news travels fast. Even though Marland's cartoon was copyrighted, it was on the Internet by midday Friday. Monitor editors' e-mail queues and voice mails were soon filled with messages from New York and elsewhere expressing disgust and anger over the cartoon.
When we decided to run the cartoon, I did not even consider this possibility. I should have, and that alone should have kept me from running it.
I'm sorry we ran it. Marland intended it to provoke, not offend. Generally I try to see things not just through my own eyes but also through the eyes of readers. I wish I had been wise enough to do that in this case.
Friday, February 8, 2002
Good job, folks!
No, censorship would be removing the cartoon from your web site as if it never ran.
I so hope that Rush talks about this Monday.
Not even close doofus.
Wrong! He printed it. He's a grownup and knew exactly what he was doing.
Takes responsibility. Admits error.
Mike Pride must not be a liberal. Not an unsalvageable one, anyway.
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