It’s not unusual for a publication’s editorial cartoons to offend some of its readers. But the cartoon in the October 19 edition of the Rochester Business Journal went well beyond political commentary, resulting in complaints from readers and an online protest signed by nearly 150 businesses.
The cartoon, by syndicated cartoonist Rick McKee, had the text “A Field Guide to Liberals: Helping You Identify How They Identify” and included a stunningly offensive insult aimed at transgender people.
Following its publication, RBJ editor Ben Jacobs issued a lengthy apology. The cartoon, he wrote, “should never have been published. We take full responsibility and apologize for our mistake. It does not reflect the views of this publication or its staff.”
The RBJ is adopting new procedures to ensure that something similar doesn’t happen again, Jacobs wrote. It’s also talking with local organizations, including the Out Alliance, “to seek their input on how we can better educate our staff to understand different viewpoints and to provide more opportunities for diverse voices in our publication,” Jacobs wrote.
In an interview late last week, Jacobs added that RBJ has stopped publishing editorial cartoons. “We’ve thought about cartoons for a while,” he said. “They’re political in nature, and we’re not a political newspaper.”
Cartoonist McKee’s home newspaper is the Augusta, Georgia, Chronicle, which, like the RBJ, is owned by the Rochester-based national media company Gatehouse. McKee’s work often attacks liberals, but he has also skewered Donald Trump.
While the RBJ has run cartoons by artists affiliated with newspapers owned by other companies, they’ve often been from Gatehouse papers, Jacobs said. RBJ operates separately from Gatehouse, however, and the parent company hasn’t been involved in RBJ’s selection of cartoons, he said.
This article appears in Oct 24-30, 2018.
I hope something fruitful comes of their conversation with the Out Alliance. That cartoon was one of the worst ones I’ve seen published in Rochester or anywhere.
The editor should resign.
This is a typical worthless “apology” from failed senior management. This isn’t a matter of spelling someone’s name wrong or misidentifying some business in a story. By his failure to do his job or properly training his staff to do theirs, Jacobs permitted a piece of disgusting bigotry to appear in his paper. Had he allowed a cartoon making fun of African-Americans or members of some religious organization to be published, his head would have rolled by now. So what is different when dealing with gender issues? My god man, this is 2018, not 1958. Anyone with an ounce of decency and common sense would have known that this item should have been dumped and any connection with the cartoonist terminated.
Haven’t seen the cartoon but it sounds like it was in very poor taste. You quoted RBJ editor Jacobs as stating that he would like to “…provide more opportunities for diverse voices in our publication.” In terms of cartoons, perhaps the City Newspaper editor should take his advice. Your weekly cartoon entitled “The Modern World” is, if nothing else, anti-Trump in every respect, week after predictable week. Talk about a lack of diversity!! Next time you lecture us on the value of diversity in one of your columns, please reflect on your own publication. It appears that RBJ finally gets it. Wish I could say the same for you.
Cupid: Your premise is flawed. Unlike subscription-based newspapers such as the RBJ or the DandC, which should at least pretend to be unbiased in order to avoid antagonizing subscribers, City is a freebie and can cater to one segment of the political spectrum as they see fit. They have no legal or ethical obligation to print cartoons or articles in praise of Neocons or our Psycho-in-Chief or related “diverse voices” , even though such pro-Trump bilge would be a laugh riot. As with CNN or Fox, they need only ensure that their political slant does not scare away too many advertisers to remain profitable. If you don’t like what City publishes, go elsewhere.
2018 when French cartoonists enjoy more freedom than American cartoonists.
“RBJ cartoon brings protests and apology” -and the death of an American art form old as Ben Franklin. Congratulations.
Don’t be so melodramatic Mike
COOL! more restriction on speech! If you don’t know what free speech is how about “irony”?
The group thinkers move, once more, to squelch opinions that run counter to their fragile PC sensibilities. This editor has no clue as to what purpose the First Amendment serves. Political debate requires two sides but the left can’t handle opposing views so the Opinions Page becomes an echo chamber. We don’t need more sensitivity training, we need more insensitivity training.
Carl Carson: Of course they have no legal or ethical obligation to print cartoons in praise of either political side, or both for that matter. And they obviously are free to cater to one particular side of the political spectrum, which they endlessly do. If City wants to run “the Modern World” every week with its same tired predictable theme, have at it. And if they want to exhibit hypocrisy, which was my point, that too is their freedom.
Although my views are diametrically opposed to my fellow cartoonist, Rick McKee’s, I
stand with those who say the paper should not have apologized for running it. We can either pretend that views we disagree with don’t exist or we can look at them squarely and counter them with better arguments or, in this case, better cartoons that argue for another point of view–or many points of view! Cartoons don’t kill people. Let them start conversation, not stop it. Signe Wilkinson, editorial cartoonist
I agree with my colleague Signe. The fact is the editorial cartooning profession is made up of a majority of white males. If editors continue to run cartoons by creators who have only experienced certain life experiences, you’re going to get these myopic points of view. The answer isn’t to demand certain images be off-limits. The long-term answer is to get more varied points of view represented and published.
-Ann Telnaes
editorial cartoonist, The Washington Post