Concord Monitor mea culpa over the Marland cartoon (GW Bush flies into WTC/Social Security)

Concord Monitor ^ | 2/8/02 | Mike Pride, Concord editor

[jocon307]

How old is this guy, this editor? Does anyone here think he's older than, say 25? He seems sincere, but definately clueless. He thinks enough time has passed since Sept. 11th for our nation to heal? What is he, nuts, stupid, or (my guess, obviously) just "young & foolish". My God, it's not even 6 months, it's not even March 11th yet, nor will it be for over a month. (It's not even 5 months...ok, i'll stop doing math now.)

How old is this guy, this editor? Does anyone here think he's under, say 72? He didn't consider the internet? He's invoking a copyright? How "old media" is he?

How incompetent is this guy? Does aonyone here wonder at his 20/20 hindsight realization that if he were an editor in NYC he wouldn't have run the cartoon? The major story of our lifetimes, and he wants to view it from a viewpoint that is not virtuously "unsophisticated" but stubbornly "provacative". Maybe the San Francisco Chronicle needs a newspaper editor, because this offense is worth being fired over.

I even think his apology is sufficiently abject, I just think the fellow's a dope now, that's the problem!

[MeekOneGOP]

Why we shouldn't have run Mike Marland's cartoon

Excerpt:

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.

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Good job fellow FReepers!!
Above is the actual title in the Concord Monitor's retraction of the cartoon of Bush flying into the WTC (this one). . .

http://www.politicsny.com/images/gbcartoonsmall.jpg

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(((PING))))))
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[Nuke'm Glowing]

It was a well thought out, sincere and true weasal culpa. Similar to another famous one:

"Well, I did not have sex with that girl. She just sort of slipped on some soap in that hallway off the oval office and fell face first into my lap. One thing led to another and, well, you know, it was just a mistake on my part."

Or something like that. Sorry, if you accept a liberal weasal's explanation, then I guess that just makes you simple. If you don't and you're like me, that makes you an evil conservative cyincal lunchroom childkillerpoorhatingrichratfink.

[Hamilton2]

I totally disagree with the so-called intended message of this cartoon to begin with. Marland's explanation that the cartoon was depicting how 9/11 impacted Bush's s decisions regarding Social Security is NOT the message I get from this cartoon. To me, it makes GW, as always by the liberal media, a MEAN REPUBLICAN who wants to take out social security benefits.

I think the cartoonist isn't being totally honest about his intent and I think the editor who allowed the cartoon should have been around during the Clinton years. Perhaps his concern over censorship might have been expressed in allowing coverage of the Juanita Broaddrick and impeachment stories.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

"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." ......Mike Pride, Concord editor

________________________________________________________________________________________________________-

It's excusable when they do it but let a conservative editorial cartoonist do something provocative and stand back and watch the fur fly.

A & M Student paper blasted for printing cartoon called racist

[Asclepius]

... We have declined to run a cartoon or two over the years because we found them tasteless ...

... I thought that rejecting the cartoon would be censorship ...

Reconcile these two claims, Calvin.

You don't print every cartoon produced by every cartoonist. So by your own reasoning you are censoring every cartoonist but this one.

Your syrupy mea culpa reeks of piety, yet lacks consistency.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

From the editorial:
I thought that rejecting the cartoon would be censorship.

This comment is the most telling one in the entire piece. It betrays the real thoughts in this "editors" mind.

According to the editor's statement his decision, as editor, not to run this cartoon would have been "censorship."

Anyone sufficiently experienced in the newspaper business to have attained the position of editor must realize that censorship does not occur through the actions of private newspaper choosing to purchase or not purchase a particular submission; censorship is an act of a government, or other outside, interfence.

Furthermore, assuming the editor did think this was censorship, his thought process is absolutely without logic. Under the editor's faulty "logic," he must run every cartoon submitted to him and every letter to the editor submitted to him; he must run every newspaper article submitted to him as written; as he cannot reject cartoons, he cannot reject stories or even story ideas.

In short, under his logic, he cannot "edit" his own newspaper at all.

Obviously, the editor cannot, and surely does not, operate in this manner.

Therefore, one has to question the veracity of his statement that not running the cartoon would be censorship.

More likely than not, the editor never considered the "censorship" question at all, and is attempting to hide behind same in an effort to cloak his extremely ill-advised decision to run this cartoon behind a veil of "First Amendment" patriotism.

[estpeter]

What a sniveling piece of trash...this guy is a newsman? He got caught and his trying to weasel out of it is pathetic.

[Morgan's Raider]

One idea behind the cartoon, he (Marland) said, was that the terrorist attack had had a direct bearing on Bush's budget and the fate of Social Security.

Bulls**t. The only idea behind the cartoon is the visceral hatred the left has for our President, which IMHO far exceeds any hatred we ever had for the Clinton bunch.

[Benrand]

Everything's policitcal with left media types.

I wonder if he remembers the sight of two gigantic buildings collpsing on the heads of thousands of people...INNOCENT people. WHat great material to attack GWBush with. It's beyond bad taste and it never should have run.

I wonder if his paper ever ran any cartoons very critical of Clinton and his sexual addiction problems, or maybe having a pharma plant in Sudan with the words "ECONOMY" on the side and Bubba riding a Tomahawk...

[aruanan]

I thought that rejecting the cartoon would be censorship.

Hey, there, Mr. Editor, looks as though you have to add "basic thinking" to the list of tasks you need to accomplish in order to be able to do your job adequately. Of course it's censorship. There's nothing inherently wrong with censorship, as long as it's not a blanket censorship by the government on the nation. But everyone practices some form of censorship every day in the words he chooses to use and the thoughts he decides to express. The head of an organization has to practice some form of discretion over what that organization puts out into the public that will represent that organization. He chooses to let some things pass. He chooses to hold some things back. The outworking of that discretion is censorship. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. You, though, have NO CONSTITUTIONAL OBLIGATION to publish whatever that cartoonist decides to draw. Congress, on the other hand, has a constitutional obligation to keep its hands of what you choose or choose not to print. You simply exercised bad judgment. Don't try to mitigate that by appealing obliquely to the First Amendment.

[calvin sun]

Reconcile these two claims, Calvin.

Perhaps this statement should be directed to Mr. Pride, the editor? I am merely repeating his words. But I agree with you, his statement does lack consistency

[Capitalist Pig]

email sent: George Wilson Chief Executive Officer Newspapers of New England george@nnenews.com February 9, 2002 Dear Mr. Wilson: It takes a unique callousness on the part of your editor, Mr. Pride, to be able to match the offensiveness of prior actions in the garnishing of an apology. To state as fact from the comfort of his desk that "enough time had passed for the wounds of Sept. 11 to heal" shows the shallowness of Mr. Pride's wounds from the onset of this tragedy. Not a morning has gone by where I have not awoken overwhelmed by the deep fire of grief over the events of that tragic day. Clearly, for me, five months has not been long enough to overcome my desperate sense of loss over the murder of my younger sister. Her young daughter, who is now 13 months old, will never know her mother. Her husband will do his best to paint her memory to his daughter as he raises her alone. Her parents will grieve as only parents who outlive their children can. In fact Mr. Wilson, five months is not even close. Mr. Pride caused an enormous amount of pain by allowing the Monitor to run Mr. Marland's disgustingly insensitive drawing. However, he has inflicted an equal injury by impugning those American's whose wounds have not healed. I say again , it is a callous man who would imply that the problem with Mr. Marland's cartoon is not the subject matter but the audience. That I and other Americans do not match Mr. Pride's emotional constitution and acuity for healing, is our problem is the implication of this apology. Shame on you Mr. Marland. Shame on you Mr. Pride. Finally, shame on you Mr. Wilson for allowing a culture to exist at your organization where humor is found in the suffering of others.

[LS]

I agree with Calvin: his insertion of the phrase about the Internet essentially says, "Well, if our ignorant local yokels were the only ones who had seen this, we wouldn't be in trouble. But danged if that Internet didn't show everyone what we were up to."

It is reasoned, but the apology should have been, "Our artist was wrong to draw such a stupid depiction equating the mass murder of 3,000 people with slightly LOWER INCREASES in social security, and I was a fool or a coward for not pulling it. In either case, both HE AND I were completely wrong."

[cincinnati_Steve]

Mike Pride has been editor of the Concord Monitor since 1983. Prior to that, he served as its managing editor. Under his editorship the Monitor has won the New England Newspaper of the Year Award 16 times,as well as numerous national awards for excellence. The paper was cited by Time magazine and the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the best papers in the country.

Before joining the Monitor, Pride was city editor of the Clearwater Sun and the Tallahassee Democrat A graduate of the University of South Florida, he served as a Russian linguist in the Army during the late 1960s and began his journalism career as a sports writer at the Tampa Tribune .

Pride won the National Press Foundation's editor of the year award in 1987 for directing the Monitor's coverage of the Challenger disaster and later the Yankee Quill Award for contributions to New England journalism. A former chairman of the Small Newspapers Committee of the American Society of Newspapers Editors, he also served on the Society's writing awards board. He is a contributing editor for Brill's Content, where his column, "Out Here," appears regularly. With a colleague, he recently completed a history of a Civil War infantry regiment from New Hampshire.

This is from the announcement of his appointment to the Pulitzer Prize Board. Which about says it all about his political leanings and integrity..."Left" and "None", respectively.

[chainsaw]

Thanks for the link. I didn't copy that cartoon the first time through. Now I have it in my archives.

[gaspar]

The Concord Monitor, as you no doubt know, is owned by the Dwight and Wilson families. Your letter to George Wilson might be expected to shame someone with a sense of propriety. However, George Wilson, has recent helped form an organization of family newspapers because, to paraphrase his own statements, local newspapers are better newspapers, they practice better journalism and a great deal is lost when they are bought out by a chain. Really, Mr. Wilson's bias is no different than, and his thinking has the mind-set of, the publisher of the New York Times. His editor should be run out of town on a rail, but that would be too horrid to contemplate by the milquetoast remnants of Revolutionary America.

[diefree]

And now you've got me crying again.

[VA Advogado]

You use an aweful lot of words to basically say nothing. I don't know what more he could say to satisfy your simple and one dimentional outlook on life.

[VA Advogado]

You use an aweful lot of words to basically say nothing. I don't know what more he could say to satisfy your simple and one dimentional outlook on life.