Not a scientific poll by any stretch of the imagination, but when The Public Editor asked for reader’s impressions of the new Week in Review format, 15 of the 24 comments mentioned in some way that they wish the editorial cartoons hadn’t been removed.
Here’s a representative quote from Vince Parry of Brooklyn, NY:
I’m with those who miss the late show comedians’ jokes and the political cartoons, but not because they amuse me with some kind of low-brow giggling; rather they provide a richer, in-the-trenches backdrop to the central business of professional reporters doing analysis and commentary.
Great….they miss us just as much as they miss quotes from Jay Leno…..ugh!!!
I read the reactions and the first thing I thought that was the Times really should have continued to run the editorial cartoons at least while introducing the new comic strip idea. Readers who miss the editorial cartoons would be less likely to view the new comic positively. And that’s too bad because McFadden’s new comic is very good. Otherwise, I would agree with the readers who noted the value and need for humor from some of the top editorial cartoonists. That humor, especially in that location of the paper, is not expendable, but essential.
(Full disclosure: I am a long-time print subscriber to the weekly NYT (I can sit in front of a computer only so long…) and also subscribe to the local paper on Sundays.)
well duh….
Maybe it’s time the NYT grow some little round ones and quit trying to dilute editorial cartooning with op-ed art work and now a comic strip.
Since they won’t …the NYT public editor should just come right out and say why they can not stand up for the freedom of expression when it comes to editorial cartooning.
Come on just tell the readers the truth, that you lack any journalistic integrity when it comes to an editorial cartoonist expressing their views….either as your own staffer (which you have bypassed since 1958) and now with reprints in your Sunday Reviews.
The truth is they can not stomach the idea of being overshadowed by an entity that expresses itself with none of the journalistic tools which they have supposedly learned as the proper way of communicating.
There is the reason why the NYT is called the old gray lady…it loves the gray look of copy on a page. It also cringes if any visuals jumps off the page grabbing readers attention.
Newspaper print managers are classical music parents that love control and no boat rocking. Editorial cartoons are rock ‘n’ roll teenagers that just want the truth.
The NYT should just accept human nature that readers brains will always look for images first before they start reading.
Quit thinking of editorial cartooning as your trained humor monkey that is supposed to entertain you and your readers. Editorial cartooning is a visually biased exaggeration of the facts of the cartoonists own personal views.
It is a visual medium that cuts through the BS to the heart of an issue for the exposure of the truth.
One cartoons is worth a thousand phone calls that the NYT doesn’t want to have to deal with…plain ‘n’ simple.
Obviously this is a concept of communication that even though it has been around for well over a century, it’s way beyond anyones pay grade at the NYT.
Milt, why don’t you consider the Sunday Review comic an editorial cartoon?
Maybe it?s time the NYT grow some little round ones and quit trying to dilute editorial cartooning with op-ed art work and now a comic strip.
Since they won?t ?the NYT public editor should just come right out and say why they can not stand up for the freedom of expression when it comes to editorial cartooning.
I’ve spent two days trying to figure out what the heck this even means.
Allowing a cartoonist to try an editorial cartoon with a different format and style is “diluting freedom of expression?” I’m really getting sick to death of this snotty, condescending refusal to even refer to Brian’s work as an editorial cartoon, as if it’s beneath yours or anyone else’s or something.
There seems to a be a lot of stuff that people should “come out and say” here, mainly in the area of being angry that someone else’s work is being run instead of theirs. It would come of as far less silly than a complaint about how the New York Times is trying to entertain its readers.
Milt, you sound like you can’t hear your Tommy Dorsey records because your neighbor’s playing that dad burned rock n’ roll.
Maybe graphix paper, crosshatching and the tired cliche’s we complain about are finally on the way out. That’s a good thing, Daddy-O.