Timing is everything, and while Jeff Stahler (AMS)‘s image of the impossibility of getting it back in the tube is hardly a new metaphor, we’re at a stage where we should be wishing there were some way to do it. It’s astounding to have a vice-presidential candidate openly admit that he is willing to tell […]
Pearls Before Swine (AMS) offers a yes-but-no discussion of our situation. There certainly are a lot of people siloed in their own little belief centers, and that’s a problem in a democratic system where people are supposed to make informed decisions. But there is such a thing as truth, and there is such a thing […]
Dave Whamond sets the table for today’s discussion. On first look, you might well think he is contrasting the left (blue) with the right (red), but if he had that in mind, it’s secondary to the main point, which is an accusation of the Mainstream Media looking for false balance by airing both truth and […]
Paul Fell lays out one of the major issues in the upcoming elections, which is that a significant portion of the electorate is being fed a steady diet of, at best, downer takes on everything and, at worst, lies. I understand the concept of spin. When I first began teaching high school kids about editorial […]
Sometimes it’s easy to call out a cartoonist. In this case, given that, in his profile statement at Counterpoint, Mike Beckom boasts of deliberately insulting people and being insensitive to their feelings, and styles himself as “not politically correct” at his Twitter page, it’s not out of bounds to assume his mockery of Hawaiian culture […]
“Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth—to see it like it is, and tell it like it is—to find the truth, to speak the truth, and to live the truth. ” — Richard M. Nixon, August 8, 1968 Gary Varvel (Creators) offers a pair of cartoons that illustrate today’s theme. The first is […]
Prickly City (AMS) continues the thread cited here yesterday, on the negative perceptions people attach to politicians. Historical perspective matters: Washington is consistently ranked by historians as one of our best presidents, but he had his opponents at the time and newspaper writers in that period could be vicious. Congress tried to tame opposition voices […]
Apparently he doesn’t, Loretta. Netiquette has seemingly vanished since the Good Old Days when people knew that all-caps was SHOUTING and stupid and the sign of a troll, and when we all knew better than to feed the trolls. And there were only a half dozen emoticons and none of them looked like little cartoons. […]
This Alan Moir cartoon is past its use-by date — I try to feature cartoons within seven days — but the fact that it’s a bit old is somewhat the point. The point is, is it true? Is it false? Is it spin? I say “spin.” I’m still interested in the war, but we’ve […]
I have a degree of sympathy for cartoonists who are locked into a schedule by their publishers and can’t simply dash off a piece in response to breaking news. However, to quote Marcus Aurelius, “Id est quod est,” and you need to adjust to the terms you’re facing. I once wrote a humor feature for […]
Pat Byrnes sets the scene for tonight’s broadcast of the Jan 6 Committee hearing, and it does indeed promise to be a delightful, infuriating production, at least for those who (A) tune in and (B) tune in expecting to see what happened and hear why. Today’s headline comes from a fellow who worked at an […]
There is a temptation to simply display Morten Morland’s absolutely brilliant commentary on Russian atrocities and shut down for the day. There’s also a temptation to save it for last, to end with a crescendo. But we have to be wary of temptation; I saw a posting from someone who wished Twitter had a button you […]
Joel Pett wraps up both the message and the problem of World Press Freedom Day in a single cartoon: We all want truth. We just can’t agree on what it is. We should expect spin, the presentation of facts from a partisan viewpoint. John Cole offers a chuckle about the FBI search of Rudy […]
Instead of pontificating for 1,000 words and ending with a video, I’m going to start with the video and then add the commentary. Matt Wuerker has been creating a series of videos on the topic of editorial cartooning, and this one is good, but struck several nerves. Check it out: Perhaps I should have said, […]
This Robert Cenedella poster seems like a kind of Grinchy way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, but stick with me here, because the topic today is spin, lies and professionalism. I’m seeing a lot of political cartoons based on the idea that the Apollo landing united a fractured nation, which it […]