Herbert Ross of Lyme wrote an excellent letter to the Day, taking issue with its decision to run a blatantly misleading editorial cartoon. The cartoon asserted, against all the evidence, that the Social Security trust fund was going bankrupt.
Mr. Ross asks that the Day explain the way the it makes it editorial decisions regarding the cartoons that it runs, and surprisingly receives a response, which I print in full below, to avoid any charge that I am misrepresenting the Day’s rationale.
The Day seeks to publish on its editorial pages political cartoons reflecting a variety of opinions across the political scale. We recognize that the message conveyed by the cartoonists does at times run counter to our own editorial opinions. Such a clash of ideas is the very essence of political debate. As for the accuracy of the cartoon’s meaning, The Day realizes political cartoonists often paint their opinions with a wide brush and provides them the latitude to do so.
This is very noble sounding, but in fact it amounts to an abdication of the editorial role. Mr. Ross is not complaining about the cartoonist’s opinion, to which she is entitled, he is complaining about her facts, to which she is not entitled. I will observe here that, curiously, it is always right wing non-facts that get propagated in the editorial cartoons.
Here, then, is what we are free to believe goes through the head of the editors as they chose this cartoon:
Here is a cartoon in which the cartoonist asserts that she is entitled to her own facts as well as her own opinion. We have a large number of syndicated cartoons from which we can choose. We choose this one. We, however, are not responsible for propagating a lie, simply because we choose to provide a platform from which that lie can be propagated. The fact that we choose to print this merely reflects our belief that we have an obligation to inject falsehoods as well as truth into the public discourse. If lies are effectively propagated as a result, that has nothing to do with us.
This brings to mind what was possibly the best example of the Day’s refusal to exercise minimal editorial judgment. Back in January the Day printed an editorial condemning talk about death panels. The editorial sat right next to an editorial cartoon that asserted the existence of death panels. By the way, news flash to the Day: more people look at the cartoon than read your editorial pablum.
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