Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Is CJR pulling punches in the face of Zionism?

Columbia Journalism Review recently had a good piece about how, within the precariat that is modern journalism, editorial cartoonists have become a precariat squared.

The main thrust of the piece is that cheapskate owners in general, and wingnut owners in particular using finances as an excuse, have accelerated the die-off, killing off cartoonists who won't toe a MAGA line.

However, the piece was sadly spoiled in the middle by this:
In April, after the Times international edition published an antisemitic cartoon, James Bennet, the opinion editor, who oversaw cartoons, disciplined the production editor responsible and dumped the syndication service that had provided the offensive image. Two months later, Bennet vowed to never publish a cartoon in the international edition again. Patrick Chappatte and Heng Kim Song, the international edition’s two in-house cartoonists, who had nothing to do with the image in question, lost their jobs. Joel Pett, a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist, called the move “chickenshit.” 

Well, that's probably not the most chickenshit thing.

CJR showed several anti-Trump cartoons, but not this one. It wouldn't even link to a site that showed it. 

I'll do both.

Here's the cartoon as it appears in Haaretz:



Why did I go there?

Because Haaretz has it in an opinion piece which says, in essence, the cartoon isn't antisemitic and that it's run worse itself.

As much of the mainstream media (and apparently the media that analyzes the mainstream media) still kowtows to Zionist stances, it's important to call it out. Many journalists know the truth about these issues — that American newspapers still self-censor a lot on Zionism issue and self-censor a lot more than Israeli papers do.

Shame on CJR (and Sam Thielman as author) for being too cowardly or craven to not even run a link, let alone the actual cartoon.

After all, it ran pictures of multiple allegedly anti-Islamic Charlie Hebdo cartoons.

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