Mar 12 2012

If Doonesbury is censored in your daily paper…

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…this link will take you to the latest copy. But then, you probably already all read it online anyway, and the print censorship just enhances the growing irrelevancy of print media.

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25 comments

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1

Zeno

12 March 2012 at 7:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

My morning newspapers are two for two … sort of. The San Francisco Chronicle is simply running the strips as usual in the comics section. The Sacramento Bee is also running the strips, but not in the comics section. The editorial weenies at the Bee decided to run a notice at the top of the funnies page:

The Doonesbuy strip below replaces Gary Trudeau’s original story line on abortion. The original comic strips can be found on the opinion pages this week because of graphic imagery and offensive language.

Can you say “wusses”?
2

davidct

12 March 2012 at 7:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

What’s a newspaper?
3

richardelguru

12 March 2012 at 7:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

but if you are trying to read it from work and your employers’ firewall….. Bzzzzzt! Click! Not suitable for business acc…
4

wholething

12 March 2012 at 8:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The Columbus Dispatch has a Doonesbury Flashback. I cancelled my subscription. I nearly cancelled it last month because they changed their policy on vacation delivery stoppages. If your stoppage is less than 30 days, you still have to pay. I was going to cancel the next time I travelled but this moved it up.
5

Gregory

12 March 2012 at 8:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The Seattle Times has moved the strip from the Comics page to the Editorial page for the duration. Honestly, I think that is where Doonesbury belongs: it usually more editorial and social commentary than kiddy stuff. Then again, it is a nice balance to the conservativism often expressed in Shoe, B.C. and other strips.
6

Gregory

12 March 2012 at 8:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Nope, it turns out the Seattle Times lied when they said they would be relocating the strip and showing the “controversial” series; they are re-running an old series. Thanks for the link.
7

Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform

12 March 2012 at 8:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Gregory, how is the conservatism expressed in those other comics not “editorial and social commentary”? That is right-wing framing: “political” vs. “normal,” rather than progressive vs. conservative.
8

eric

12 March 2012 at 8:37 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

WashPo is running it (at least, they are on-line). Probably not a surprise given the locale and paper’s reputation.
9

Gregory

12 March 2012 at 8:41 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Oops, my bad. The Seattle Times is running the replacement strip on the comics page, and the actual strip in the national news section (page A2, for those of you who read the print edition of the Seattle Times.)
10

bahrfeldt

12 March 2012 at 8:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

1. Zeno- “because of graphic imagery and offensive language”. Translation, if you disagree with me it’s graphic and offensive.

5. Gregory- the New York Daily News publishes Mallard Duck as a comic strip, a loyal continuing Republican advertisement.

And the previous day’s strip neatly sums up the Obama “problem”.
Again.
11

Gregory

12 March 2012 at 8:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

@Ms. Daisy Cutter #7, @bahrfeldt #10 – My point exactly. As long as other social commentary and editorial cartoons are on comics page, then Doonesbury belongs on the comics page.
12

Lars

12 March 2012 at 9:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Graphic imagery and offensive language?

?

Is somebody trying to kill free speech by abusing it until it curls up and dies?
13

maureenbrian

12 March 2012 at 9:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

You mean something as mild as that can get censored?
14

Steve LaBonne

12 March 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Atrios, htis morning, said it best: “Where we are. Mandatory state rape is much less offensive than pointing out that something is mandatory state rape.”
15

Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead

12 March 2012 at 11:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Remember it is never the role of the News Media is disrupt, offend, or challenge the status quo. What do people expect some actual information and reporting of issues regardless of who is offended? That’s what the Daily Show is for. Sheesh!
16

iain

12 March 2012 at 11:27 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The Dallas Morning News, which was one of the papers rumored to be dropping the strip last week had a statement on why they are not doing so: http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/03/some-papers-areant-running-doo.html

The editor says the strips are “fair comment.”
17

Eskeptrical Engineer

12 March 2012 at 11:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I read the funnies every morning as a kid. (As an adult who no longer receives a newspaper, I still read webcomics every morning.)

When I was too little to understand it, I just didn’t read Doonesbury. I’m pretty sure that if no one was making a big deal out of it, kids would just skip right over that strip, like they probably do with Mary Worth and a number of others.

Strips like B.C. are a lot more sinister, since they look like kids’ comics, but are just as political as Doonesbury, as others have mentioned.
18

dianne

12 March 2012 at 12:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

What is this “print media” of which you speak?
19

gvlgeologist

12 March 2012 at 12:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Five minutes before I saw this post, I called up our local newspaper and cancelled my subscription because of this. And I told them that this was the reason. The only way to make these companies see the error of their ways is to hit them in the cash register.
20

carlie

12 March 2012 at 12:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I’ve never understood why any paper put Doonesbury in the comics section rather than the editorial section; do they not ever read the comics in the first place?
21

trewquiop

12 March 2012 at 2:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

Happy to report that both of the local dailies are printing the strip…but I live in a pretty liberal pocket of an otherwise fairly conservative region. I do look forward to the outraged letters to the editor from our more “socially conservative” neighbors.
22

betelgeux

12 March 2012 at 3:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

I stopped subscribing to my local rags a long time ago, but they’re both running the strip online. The papers are terrible, but I do like to annoy conservatives by writing fact-laden liberal letters to the editor.

Speaking of newspapers, this poll on that misogynist Limbaugh needs a good ‘ol Pharyngulatin’. The question is “Is Limbaugh Toast?” and “Yes–he is a bigmouth bully” is tied with “No–The Democrats are destroying him!” for first place. Let’s show them what we think of Rush. There are only a few hundred votes, so it’ll be easy. And they print the results in the paper.
23

Fukuda

12 March 2012 at 3:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

You can watch some of the fallout from this strip at Doonesbury’s Blowback, it has some “pearls” like the following posts:

You “cartoon” is disgusting and way out of line. You should switch to commentary and get out of the “cartoon” business. Go to church.

“Shaming room” indicates there is something wrong with abortion — something to feel bad about. You obviously don’t feel that way. What’s the problem then, unless you believe that showing a woman what is inside her will cause her to change her mind. What’s wrong with educated decisions? Today’s cartoon should end: “Written by a middle-aged male political activist.”

Sorry to see you are backing the bad guys in this abortion debate. But then I am not too surprised. I knew something was wrong with your strip when I was in high school. By the way, trashing the culture is what is happening on the left.

etc, etc…

Luckily, some rational replies can be found there too.
24

shouldbeworking

12 March 2012 at 7:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The Edmonton journal published Doonesbury in its usual place without any warning.
25

stellasmith

13 March 2012 at 4:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment

The San Diego Union Tribune is pulling this week’s Doonesbury strip with a sanctimonious explanation about how the subject is “not appropriate” and “crossed a line”. On the same day of the first missed strip, they also printed ads from the the following: Cheetah’s Strip Club, the Body Shop (for “total adult entertainment”), Deja vu Showgirls (“totally nude”) and an erectile dysfunction clinic. HYPOCRITICAL MUCH??