A Really Bad Decision
The New York Times has decided not to run political cartoons.
Beginning next month, the Times will cease running daily political cartoons in its international edition, editorial page editor James Bennet said Monday in a statement — a move that brings the overseas newspaper “into line with the domestic paper,” which in recent years had ceased running weekly roundups of syndicated cartoons and experimented instead with longer-form editorial comics.
Two hundred and fifty years of political cartooning in America has resulted in social and economic change beyond anything written on the Times editorial page.
If the Times is afraid of offending people, it should open a cheerful chain of Jiffy Lubes and get the hell out of the newspaper business.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Ironic that a newspaper that owes its existence to the First Amendment would choose to remove one of the most democratic forms of expression. The British, French, Germans, and the United States have historically featured cartoons as a means of lampooning the absurd in our politics. The NYT is not irreplaceable. We have the internet, Die Tageszeitung, and the San Francisco Chronicle among many other choices.
1I suspect they have found the problem with humor in general–you have to be smart to have a good sense of humor or the absurd and most humorists, by far, are leftists and liberals. There’s a reason why you don’t see really funny conservatives. They are too dumb.
2“There’s a little truth behind every joke.”
I find there’s a lot of truth behind political cartoons.
3De lurking to say – they were probably advised to do that by their favorite group of True Blue Americans who reside in a diner in rural PA, all white and wearing MAGA hats.
4The Times had to apologize for a grossly anti-Semitic cartoon in its international edition last April. So instead of better editorial oversight, they’re banning all cartoons. How courageous.
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