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
Yeah, he ran an offensive ad which reinforced the Democrat bromide that what ever Republicans do means Social Security is going to be wrecked. Everyone knows the budget will have zero impact on SS checks. Except the elderly the cartoonist and this editor were trying to scare out of their wits.
We may gather at FR but each one of us represent every area of the globe. Good job freepers who jumped on this right away. 2 in 2 days-the IOC changing their minds and now an editor's mea culpa.
Should have stopped here, offering all the excuses cheapens the sincerity...
Someone needs to send this guy the jpeg of the woman holding the infant out of the window of the burning tower...
I wonder if he will still try to convince himself that "the country has had time to pass through all the stages of grief,"
From the editorial:
"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."
Notice the wording. He doesn't say "strong criticism of what he perceives to be the threat that Bush's budget poses...", or " strong criticism of Bush's budget", or............well, you get the idea. No, Mr. Pride agrees with the cartoonist; that this bad, bad, evil Republican President wants to sink Social Security (personally, I wish he WOULD sink Social Security).
Yep, he's DEFINITELY a liberal. Salvageable? Maybe. Any more, I don't care to differentiate. Liberals are the enemy.
The only thing that those libs regret in all of this is that our tax dollars weren't used to publish that garbage.
Since Mike Marland draws like a third-grader and "thinks" like a 70's acid-head, why does Pride keep using him?
An editor of a paper--even of a little flyspeck like the Concord Monitor--also needs some capacity to use the old noggin.
Mike Pride has failed miserably in the "thought pattern" department --both in publishing Marland's obscenity and then following it up with this terminally lame "apology."
Between your and toupsie's post, I stand corrected.
And, rather than try to justify my mistaken notion, I will do what Mr. Pride should've done after his first sentence.
Quit while I'm ahead...
Mr. Pride is a sick, sick man if he doesn't have a gut reaction to seeing the WTC used in such a vile political attack. That is utterly disgusting!!!!!!!!
Ef him and his elitist attitude. He doesn't even realize that in his urban pressie world, they take it as a fact of life that Bush's budget is a threat to SS. They don't even take into account that it might not be a threat. In their world it does ...period.
Never mind the fact that there are some out there (like I )that would love to see social security vanquished forver.
He can kiss my a$$ with his "apology", just the fact that this garbage didn't immediately strike him as offensive and base shows what type of people they are.
I hope all of their advertisers pull out, they go out of business and he has to join the rest of us and get a real job.
This is self-serving defensive bullshit. And you think it's a sincere "mea culpa."
You must have been delighted with Clinton's many "apologies" for the "mistakes" he made, with only the best of intentions of course--
But that's what liberals always say, isn't it, to exonerate themselves and suck gullible people into letting them off the hook.
This sounds more like a tribute to Marland rather than a real apology.
The views Marland expresses often agree with the Monitor's editorial positions, but not always. They are his views, not ours. We have declined to run a cartoon or two over the years because we found them tasteless, but this has been a rare occurrence.
That they have declined to run a cartoon or two during 20 years tells me they pretty much agree with his views.
Funny how 99.9999999% of political cartoonists think only like a demonrat.
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