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
No embarrasment occurred, only a certain level of indignation at your inability to allow another poster to express why that opinion runs contrary to yours.
At no point have you yet explained how I "had it coming," or how my point was "one dimentional." All you have done is offer your own, unsupported, opinion that the editorial was sincere and your opinion, again unsupported, on other posters' world view.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. However, you would do well to actually be able to explain why you hold it, if you wish to attack the opinions of others.
LOL...but Pride was right in a way, even though he apparently didn't know it. He says the cartoon was meant to "provoke, not offend." Well, Marland's "cartoon" certainly "provoked" mainstream America and the White House, didn't it?
Without the "provocation" of Marland's "cartoon", Pride wouldn't have had to strain his po' widdle left-wing sensibilities by wading through a virtual TIDAL WAVE of email and voice mail sent by offended Americans exercising THEIR right to free speech, now would he?
It isn't our fault that Pride lacks the intellectual wherewithal to parse even the most elementary form of original thought. The left-wing: the face of the TRUE knuckledraggers is finally revealed!
What a load of BULL! That's why the friggin newspapers have EDITORS!
... Perhaps this statement should be directed to Mr. Pride, the editor? ...Man. Do I feel like a genius, man.
We're mad as hell, and we're not gonna take it anymore!!! I think that the attempt by the Gorons to steal the 2000 Presidential election awakened a sleeping giant - we will no longer be silent, and allow everything in our country that we value and cherish to be spit on and trashed by the likes of the hate-filled, power-hungry leftists.
Yes, they have a constitutional right to spew their venom, but I think they're starting to realize that they are now going to be held accountable to the American people. The days of their getting a free ride from and in the media are over.
OK, I'll have that cartoon of the Pope murdering babies done for you right away. Or the one cheering the Comumbine killers for lowing the number of students in the school, thus increasing the amount of per-student budget capital by just deviding the momey unneeded by dead students amongst the LIVE ones!
You are such a hypocrite. You defend offal in the name of free speech, then turn around and use inflamatory "intolorance" tactics on US for exercising that same right to free speech?? Typical left-wing if you can't beat em accuse them of being "intolorant" tactic. Disgusting.
And HOW does this "material" distinction refute my charge that your letter was just cover to post your ramblings on this website and sound intelligent?
Not a hypocrite, nor left-wing. I just agree with the editor that the level of sensativity to this copyrighted cartoon is directly proportional to the time that has passed since 9/11 and how close you were/are to NYC. The rest of you are just back wood ninnies trying to use this horror to further your perceived greatness on this site.
Cake_Crumb = stale and crumbling.
Thats the paper's call not mine or yours. Thats why anyone of you on this thread would make a great jackbooted minister of virtue and vice secretary in a totalitarian government. Appreciate first, the first amendment and appreciate second, that you're not in charge of it.
I am not faking outrage, Sir. I live right next door to what was the World Trade Center surrounded by the empty apartments of my DEAD neighbors. It was a little different experiencing September 11 with your own eyes rather through the boob tube hundreds of miles away. When I saw the editorial cartoon for the first time, I was in a screaming rage that not only was the actrocity mocked but the President that stepped up to the plate was being shown as an Islamic terrorist.
And didn't the writer of that letter, the editor, address at least your concern about the towers being used in the cartoon? Will two apologies (from him) make you feel any better?
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