published April 17, 1997, following complaints about a published cartoon.
By Allan R. Andrews, Editor,
Pacific Stars and Stripes, Tokyo, Japan
Cartoonists, especially editorial cartoonists, are controversial by the very nature of their work. In the space of about 25 column inches of a newspaper, often in 25 words or less, cartoonists raise the ire of many who disagree with the point being made.
There is not a working cartoonist alive who has not had to confront friend and foe alike to explain and defend his or her caricatures or succinct satires.
Because the cartoon is a picture, it packs a quick, powerful wallop not accessible to columnists limited to words only.
Gary Trudeau can express an opinion through "Doonesbury" in six cartoon panels with five or ten sentences where David S. Broder, Anthony Lewis or Ellen Goodman would require five or ten carefully crafted paragraphs and several more supporting paragraphs, to make the same point.
More often than not, a cartoon stands on its own, without accompanying news or commentary.
Alas, the cartoon's strengths--quickness, caricature, exaggeration and sharp wit in a small package--also define its greatest liabilities because anything that attempts to communicate quickly and with an economy of words is open to bias and misinterpretation.
Such appears to have been the case on March 24 when Pacific Stars and Stripes ran a cartoon by Chuck Asay of the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph that made a dramatic point about African-Americans and abortion.
Above three panels that depicted a Ku Klux Klan rally, a Nazi rally, and an abortion-supporting panel, Asay asked the overriding question: "Which of these kills more Blacks?"
As do most of our free press's powerful and prize-winning cartoons, this one of Asay's was strong, shocking, and quick to the point on a sensitive issue; in fact, it compounded the argument by touching on two highly sensitive areas of American life: abortion and race.
The cartoon upset many readers and drew several phone calls to Pacific Stars and Stripes news bureaus, but not as many as when the answer to a crossword puzzle is missing or when the daily horoscope is missing a sign of the Zodiac. To date, we have received no letters to the editor on the cartoon.
[As of May 10, the newspaper had received only one complaining letter to the editor.]
Apparently one caller to our office suggested a lawsuit charging racial bias on the part of Pacific Stars and Stripes was being considered, and a report on the cartoon apparently reached headquarters of the Commander in Chief for the Pacific in Hawaii (where Pacific Stars and Stripes does not circulate).
At times cartoonists may overstep the bounds of decency and fairness; some have been suspended for slipping profanity into their panels.
Some simply offend a large base of readers. Many British newspapers dumped a cartoonist that criticized the queen, and a female cartoonist in America lost over 50 clients when she introduced a homosexual character into her strip.
The history of editorial cartooning is dotted with controversy.
"The Yellow Kid" first appeared in newspapers in 1895 controversially poking fun at American president William McKinley and perennial candidate William Jennings Bryan. The comic became so aligned with sensationalism that a whole genre of journalism arose from its origins, so-called "yellow journalism."
Richard Nixon was consistently caricatured as a politician with a five-o'clock shadow, a depiction the former president and his family detested.
Lyndon Johnson suffered being caricatured as a mule.
And one cartoonist helped deflate bombastic Sen. Joseph McCarthy with a comic character called "Senator Malarkey."
Just a few years ago, cartoonist Doug Marlette ran afoul of the Vatican when he caricatured the Pope as being blockheadedly unsympathetic to the ordination of women.
Most editors have learned that some cartoons are bound to raise hackles and stir a flurry of complaints. Editors try to judge cartoons in a manner laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is to demand that fairness and fair comment be guidelines.
Even when an editor disagrees with the viewpoint being expressed, he or she must measure the viewpoint against the standards of free speech and fair comment.
Like 'em or hate 'em, cartoons are a basic element of the free speech that characterizes the press in a democratic society.
To paraphrase the famous dictum of Voltaire: "I may disagree with what the cartoonist pictures, but I will defend to the death his right to picture such opinions."
Pacific Stars and Stripes purchases from syndicates more than 60 comics, cartoons and editorial columnists. By charter, Pacific Stars and Stripes is prevented from running editorials of our own; we are monitored by Congress to be certain we present a balance on the spectrum of conservative-to-liberal opinions in our pages, and each year our editorial page editor reports on how we have met that demand.
Cartoonist Chuck Asay, frankly, is one of the few cartoonists in America today who is overtly and enthusiastically in the conservative camp.
Stripes purchases his cartoon because he provides a balance to the several options offered that represent more liberal opinions.
Furthermore, Asay's newspaper in Colorado Springs has a reputation for being one of the more conservative newspapers in the nation with a readership that takes in the United States Air Force Academy and a host of conservative evangelical religious organizations that maintain headquarters in the mountain city.
Asay's cartoon runs in the newspaper and is syndicated worldwide by the Creators News Syndicate, from which Pacific Stars and Stripes purchases it.
Interestingly, the cartoon in question touched so sensitive a nerve that Asay's home newspaper chose not to run it, he told Stripes’ Managing Editor Mike Durant in a telephone call.
Nevertheless, the syndicate distributed it, and Asay's clients, among them Pacific Stars and Stripes ran the cartoon in its usual place on our Reader's Forum page.
A representative of Creators News Syndicate told Durant that there have been no unusual number of complaints to the syndicate concerning the cartoon in question.
More importantly, Asay told Durant that the theme of this particular cartoon had grown out of discussions Asay has had with black clergy in the Colorado Springs area who are concerned that African-Americans are not deeply enough involved in the anti-abortion movement.
Asay's cartoon was not racist, in the judgment of our editors; in fact, it was judged to be a cartoon of African- American advocacy.
Our editors felt the cartoon broached no limit of decency or fairness, despite being a strongly opinionated cartoon.
Yes, it was shocking; yes, it was strong; yes, it played off of historical biases; yes, it was succinct and pulled no punches. In other words, it did what editorial cartoons are supposed to do--arouse a reader's thinking cells.
Asay clearly is an anti-abortion advocate; his viewpoint differs little from viewpoints espoused by Pat Buchanan, William F. Buckley, and several other columnists whose anti-abortion opinions have run on the pages of Pacific Stars and Stripes.
Stripes neither endorses nor seeks to curtail such opinions. Stripes does not support any form of racism and would refuse to run any news story, opinion column or cartoon that we judged to be racist.
Pacific Stripes operates in the spirit of the First Amendment, which guarantees free speech and a free press.
It is in that spirit of free press and fair comment, however, we defend a cartoonist's--in this case, Chuck Asay's--right to tweak America's sensitive public soul.
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