Censoring Satire
Censoring Satire
What The Chicago Tribune Doesn’t Want You To See
Once again, the Chicago Tribune decided to censor today’s Boondocks comic strip. Why? Aaron McGruder’s hard-hitting strip dared to comment on the recently released tapes in which President Bush implied he had smoked pot.
It’s not the first time the Chicago Tribune has decided Boondocks might harm the ever-so-delicate sensibilities of its readers. In July 2003, the Tribune also refused to run the strip because it attacked President Bush for his taunt to Iraqi insurgents to “Bring it on.”
At the time, the paper’s ombudsman, Don Wycliff, explained the decision by redefining the concept of censorship, saying, “The very fact that readers could find the strips elsewhere indicates that they were not censored.”
In lieu of an actual explanation today, the paper told readers it decided not to run the strip because “Today’s original Boondocks strip presents inaccurate information as fact.” (No word on the veracity of statements made today by Garfield or Family Circus’s Jeffy.) Note to the editors of the Chicago Tribune: Political cartoons by their very nature are meant to be provocative and to hold the feet of administration officials to the satiric fire. It’s time for the Chicago Tribune to grow a spine.
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I read the comic. I understand their logic: on the comics page, it’ll offend many parents.
Move Boondocks to where it belongs: on the editorials page.
February 28th, 2005 at 5:18 pmI’m sure they don’t have any problem whatsoever with “Mallard Fillmore.”
March 1st, 2005 at 12:19 amdo your part to protect the First Amendment -
1. email the strip from the link above to everyone you know
2. complain to the editors of the Trib
3. threaten to cancel your subscription if you have one - I’ve seen papers bring back “Mary Worth” if enough people complain!
Yes, I know that would be a trivial reason to cancel a subscription, but, they were trivial first!!
March 1st, 2005 at 12:38 pmI don’t understand their logic. The purported reason for not showing the strip was inaccuracy, not its inappropriateness for children. With tapes recently released suggesting that the President smoked marijuana, Aaron McGruder can’t comment on other possible drug use? In a comic strip? Because it’s “inaccurate?” That’s just bizarre.
March 1st, 2005 at 3:18 pmWhy don’t they just drop the damn strip?
March 1st, 2005 at 4:46 pm“the paper told readers it decided not to run the strip because [it] … “presents inaccurate information as fact.â€?
Then how does the Trib justify publishing anything that the administration says?
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Censoring Satire
“Once again, the Chicago Tribune decided to censor today’s Boondocks comic strip. Why? Aaron McGrude […]
March 2nd, 2005 at 3:27 amYou’re giving Don Wycliff too much credit in calling him the Tribune’s ombudsman. His title is actually public editor and, in the Tribune’s classic paternalistic manner, his columns mostly fill a “Let Uncle Tribune explain it all to you” function. He’s more like the paper’s line to the readers than the other way around….
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